June 30, 2025 • 34 mins
In this episode, I’m coming to you from one of the most incredible trips of my life.
It's my maiden voyage through Sri Lanka with six brilliant Honey Badgers by my side. From bogged safari vehicles and thunderstorms to magical moments like releasing baby turtles into the ocean, this adventure had it all!
I’ll take you inside the wild parks of Yala, Kumana, and Wilpattu, where we searched high and low for Sri Lanka’s leopards, dodged crocs while driving over a lake, and photographed some of the most stunning birdlife I’ve ever seen. You’ll also hear about the unforgettable characters (human and animal!) we met along the way - including a flamboyant jungle fowl that stole the show. 🐔😂
Plus, you’ll get the lowdown on the elephants that act as roadside toll collectors and the hilarious, hair-raising moments that made this trip one I’ll never forget!
Get in touch via social media:
Instagram: @bobbyjosafaris
Facebook: Bobby-Jo Safaris
And explore upcoming safaris: Bobby-Jo Safaris
💬 If you love wild stories, hit play, leave a review, and share with your fellow safari lovers!
🎙️ This is a Podvan Media production.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Safari Life with Bobby Jo, where you'll get a
front row seat to some of the most breathtaking wildlife
experiences on the planet. Bobby Jo's a wildlife
photographer and safari guide, leading photography tours to
incredible destinations like theSerengeti, Patagonia, India,
Antarctica and beyond. In this podcast, she shares
(00:21):
expert photography tips, behind the scenes stories, and insights
into Wildlife Conservation. If you'd like to learn more
about her tours and workshops, visit bobbyjoesafaris.com.
G Day Honey Badgers, It's your chief honey badger here, Bobby
Joe, and I'm connecting of you from a very special place.
(00:44):
It is my first maiden voyage to Sri Lanka.
So I'm in the capital Colombo, landed last night after a pretty
lengthy time getting into the country of immigration.
That was a little bit hectic, but I'm here.
I've got 6 wonderful female honey Badgers, all repeat, yes
all wonderful guests that have travelled with me in Africa and
Asia and they're ready to tackleSri Lanka as well.
(01:06):
It's a maiden voyage which meansit's basically a research trip
and I managed to convince some of the honey Badgers to come
along and trial it with me. So it's going to be very
interesting to see how the safari goes and what we learn
along the way. The main key species that has
brought me to Sri Lanka is the Asian elephant and also the
Asian leopard. I have worked with Asian
elephants for a big chunk of my career.
(01:27):
They're very special species. I'm looking forward to taking
lots of photos and spending lotsof time with them in the parks
but also in surrounding areas. I believe there's elephants all
along the road here when you're travelling between the parks.
Super excited to do this trip. My gorgeous late best friend
Cheryl and I had planned to comehere many moons ago.
We never got around to it. So she's here with me in spirit
(01:49):
and I'm so proud I can fly the flag for our friendship here in
Sri Lanka. So it's going to be a very
special trip. I'm going to be keeping you guys
up to date with all the information from our safari to
Sri Lanka. So each park visit, I'm going to
give you the lowdown on what wasthe highlights, what we
experienced, what we've learned,funny stories, wild stories have
been too wild. But I'm really excited to offer
this destination in the years tocome.
(02:11):
So stay tuned because I'm going to be sharing with you all the
highlights and the crazy stories.
A lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to
experiencing what Shalinka has to offer.
Hello, honey Badgers. It's your chief honey badger
here, Bobby Joe. And I'm checking in with you
guys from Aragon Bay, which is on the southeast coast of Sri
(02:32):
Lanka. And we have arrived here today
after spending three nights at Yalla National Park.
So we stayed about maybe 15 minutes from the call zone of
Yalla. Sri Lanka has had some early
rains this year. It's been raining like crazy for
the last few months. So there were certain parts of
the central zone where we were supposed to go.
That's made it a bit difficult to to gain access to certain
(02:54):
roads that Mevanow guide loves to take people and lots of busy
traffic, lots of tourists comingto Yellow National Park.
So we decided to travel to the Western zone, which is known as
Zone 5, to have the park to ourselves.
My first thoughts of entering the park was it was absolutely
stunning, like no other park I'dseen before.
So much water. It was lush, it was green.
(03:16):
You had these most magnificent Peacocks displaying everywhere.
It was really stunning, beautiful park and just the
thought of knowing we could spota Sri Lankan leopard in that
park was quite exciting. Lots of beautiful green, dark
backgrounds and really nice for photography.
What I couldn't get over was theamount of diversity in birds and
just how spectacular the birds were.
(03:37):
My highlight, believe it or not in yellow was photographing the
birds, especially the Malabar Pied hornbill.
It's spectacularly large hornbill that is a resident here
in Sri Lanka, but can also be found in neighboring countries
like India. And we had some fantastic
sightings of that. We saw great, great headed fish
eagles, white bellied sea eagles, changeable Hawks,
(03:58):
crested Hawks, so many amazing birds.
And I think I'm really stoked with a shot that I got of a pair
of blue winged beaters that caught sort of a big giant mud
wasp like creature on the wing. So I've got the action shot of
it actually getting it into its beak.
So that was my highlight. Now we did see a leopard.
We worked very hard to get a leopard the first full day we
(04:19):
had. We just kept missing sightings.
It was getting a little bit frustrating, I'm not going to
lie. We would get to the site and
someone would say oh the leopardjust crossed here and we just
missed it. Finally on the last afternoon we
managed to come across a Lepidus, a beautiful female.
She was stunning and my first thoughts when she stepped out
onto the road was just how feminine she looked and how
(04:39):
dainty she was. She was very light in colour,
gorgeous eyes and she was. It was evident that she was a
mother of Cubs so you could see that she had been nursing Cubs
and the guests were pretty excited.
Karen, what was your highlight of yellow?
There were a number of things that I really loved about Yella.
Certainly the leopardess was right up there for me because I
haven't seen a leopard in Sri Lanka before.
(05:00):
But I also really loved the Christian serpent eagle that we
saw. Yeah, he was amazing to
actually. We saw observing and then catch
a snake and devour it in front of us on the.
Ground. That was an incredible.
Thought it was amazing. There was more to yellow than
just the wildlife sightings too.I mean, there was the landscape,
(05:22):
which was absolutely spectacular, as you said.
One of my highlights as well wasat the end of the rain coming up
across the reservoir and having all of these drowned trees start
black against the sort of milk, white water and the horizon.
It was just stunning, stunning place.
And what's the name of your style of photography that you
(05:43):
love? What was it called again?
I love abstract. Photography, a word that Nancy
used yesterday, intentional camera movement ICM yes, and
I've never heard of that before,but that's the trees do that
style for those trees or you just captured.
Did a little bit of it on on those trees.
I did more of it with some of the really fine trees that we
(06:03):
saw because there were some forests that had very narrow
trunked trees all grouped closely together and they came
out beautifully from what I've seen on the back of my camera.
So I'm very excited. No, it's stunning.
And how did you what did you think of the leopard?
It got my heart pounding. She was so graceful and so
beautiful and I was amazed at how delicate her aunt ears were
(06:26):
because that she had very tiny, petite, feminine ears.
Nancy, we're going to hand over to you now.
What was your highlight? Very definitely the leopardess.
She was just gorgeous, Absolutely stunning.
I loved everything about the park, like.
The pouring raved was. Great.
You wouldn't think so, but it was.
(06:47):
It's so fun listening to the rain and watching it and then
afterwards it would clear up andyou've got to see all the bugs
and the insects and the birds all going crazy.
So it was just marvellous. Yeah, it came to life after the
rain and you got stuck yesterday, your vehicle got
stuck in the mud, right? We certainly did.
I looked across and I could see the vehicle like almost going
(07:08):
sideways as they were trying to get you out of the mud, I think.
What were you guys chasing again?
Was it sloth there? Sloth there?
There was evidence of sloth. Unfortunately, we didn't see 1
yet. Stop paw prints.
Yeah, and poo. And software poo.
Did you enjoy the birding? I love the birding.
The birding is unbelievable. I've never seen such a wonderful
diversity. Raptors and hornbills and you
(07:30):
know, reheaters. I am delighted with what I
captured so far. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Well, we're on our way to Kumana, so hopefully we can get
some more. Fiona, what was your Firelights
of Yellow? Obviously the leopardess,
they're my favorite big cat and was lucky enough to see too,
even though the first one was like a two second viewing.
But I'm going to surprise myselfand say the birds.
(07:51):
I've really enjoyed. Photographing the birds this.
Time. So this is actually being
recorded. I have evidence that you just
said that. I know I did.
Dealt with, I should say it or not, but no, it's been good and
the company's been great. It's been a great.
Trip so far, yeah, it's been awesome and we're now on our way
to Kumana. Same ecosystem is yellow, same
kind of space as we're going to see and it's going to be
fabulous. We've got four nights staying at
Aragon Bay. We're literally on the beach,
(08:13):
it's a surfing beach apparently it's offseason, which I'm a bit
disappointed about, but we have to take a drive to Kumana and
yeah, 3 full day safaris. The safaris here are quite
hectic because normally, I guessAfrican style, you would get
back to your room just before lunch and you have a few hours
rest here. We're doing full day safaris.
We haven't killed each other yet.
There's been. Yeah, we're hanging in.
(08:34):
We're hanging in there. Joe.
Check back in with you in a few days, though.
Hello, Megan. Hello.
Hi, We're driving through a strip of forest that connects
the two parks and we're seeing quite an unbelievable sight.
Something I've been seeing on the BBC and on YouTube videos
pretty much all my life since I was younger, is these big bull
(08:54):
elephants on the road. And they're kind of like traffic
police or trolls and they're stopping vehicles and demanding
food. It's like, you know, pay your
toll fees on these roads. It's fascinating to watch, but
it's also incredibly scary. Maven, how long have they been
doing this for? This started a long time back,
more than 20 years back with onesingle elephant used to coming
(09:16):
onto the road and people have been throwing fruits at them.
It's basically this road connects to a main pilgrimage
area called Kataragama, where thousands of pilgrimages come to
worship this temple. So all of these people bring
fruits to offer the gods. Oh, he comes one.
Right now. Yeah, just.
(09:38):
One of the reasons they have throw fruits at them and they
have got used to it. Right now, as I'm talking to
you, an elephant has just stepped onto the road and is
trying to get us to stop. How crazy.
And Levin, you were saying that they block the they block the
car. If you don't fast enough,
they'll stand there and block it.
Yes, then he started being more wiser rather than waiting for
(09:59):
the wood and just starting to block the vehicle and just grab
the fruit from them. So that's what is happening,
what you're seeing right now, and there are more elephants
have got used to it doing that now.
It's unbelievable. I've worked with elephants for a
big chunk of my zookeeping career.
I know how strong they are. I've seen what they can do to
each other and alone people. And just the other day, the
guests and I, we watched a groupof local tourists.
(10:22):
What is that that you can? See.
Wow. They have broken down the
windshield sometimes to grab thefood and yeah, just just steal
it. Steal it.
That's so we've just driven pasta whole heap of windshield on
the road that the elephants havebroken.
This is the problem, right? When you don't pay the correct
toll or if they're not happy with the amount of toll that
you've paid, they will smash your windscreen.
(10:43):
Literally 2 days ago we watched some tourists pull up.
We saw them with their bananas. They pulled up and the elephants
put their trunk into the car andtook the bananas off them.
And the trunk has up to 100,000 mussels.
You know, it's like it is the strongest appendage on the
planet. People don't realize that they
can just grab you, RIP you out of that vehicle and hurl you
like probably, I don't know, a good 1015 meters into the air.
(11:06):
Like it's seriously dangerous stuff.
Have people been seriously injured?
No, but there have been incidents where they have
toppled the vehicles and not directly targeting any human or
harming any humans that that does not happen.
But it can happen in the, we never know.
And you think this is all alone behaviour from each other like
this? What we're noticing, it's just
bulls doing this. There's no cows out here.
(11:29):
They're too busy being mums and getting on with life and not
begging on the road. Exactly, Yeah.
And are they hanging out here oncertain days?
Do you think they're predicting when the most traffic's coming
through? Basically, they come during less
hot hours of the day, but they know when it's a weekend, it's
not that they know that it's a Saturday or Sunday, but they
(11:49):
know most of the pilgrimage comeon those days.
That's that. There's going to be traffic, so
a lot of people will be stoppingand so there'll be more
elephants with more blockage on the road.
And for those that are thinking about travelling to Sri Lanka,
highly suggest you come with me.But if you're going to be
travelling here, please don't feed them.
We met some tourists which in defence of them, they didn't
(12:09):
know their guides gave them bananas to feed to the elephants
and we gave them a pretty quick polite education on do not feed
them. I mean This is why there is such
huge elephant conflict in this area, because we basically by
feeding them we're not helping them at all, we're making life
worse for them. Is there any penalties if people
are caught feeding them? Authorities have done so many
things like finding people who are feeding them, and also at
(12:33):
some point they're trying to chase away the elephants by
throwing Thunder flashes at them, not encouraging them to
come near the roads. But it's not a practical thing
to do every day. Awareness is the best thing I
believe. Like not to feed animals.
And you were saying to me, I think yesterday that the
elephants, I mean, we all know this.
So highly intelligent beings, more than we even know about,
(12:53):
they can recognize the difference with vehicles.
So they know if it's the Rangerscar and they know that, oh, here
we go. We got to go, boys.
The Rangers are about to throw some crackers at us.
And they know with safari jeeps,which generally don't feed and
they know the minivans where thefood's AT.
And so just now we come past, they were targeting us and
almost trying to block us. But we're pretty savvy with it.
So far we've seen what, 3 or 4? And we've only been driving for
(13:15):
not even an hour. Share some videos and photos of
this situation, which needs to improve for sure.
Hello, honey Badges. I'm connecting a view from a
really wonderful morning here inSri Lanka.
We're at Kumara National Park, and we just had the most
authentic, incredible experience.
There were tears. We got to release a clutch of
olive Ridley sea turtles and greenstone sea turtles into the
(13:39):
ocean. The guests and I actually picked
them up and let them make their way to the ocean.
It was amazing. Mevin, thank you so much.
It was incredible. How many do you think have we
had that basket there? Were 22, which has early in the
morning. To this so they hatched this
morning on the way when we're onthe way here.
Yeah, that's incredible. And they all made it out of the
out of the shell. Yeah.
What's the name of the beach we're at right now?
It's called Kiriga Bay. And their project here is a
(14:01):
what? Why are they collecting the the
eggs? Because this is the National
Park, so that's lots of other predators are here in the beach.
And then you get the jackals, the wild boar.
They dig them up and eat. So they bring them to a pen like
that and they bury them with theexact replica of the that nest
that they had and then they released.
Them and they have to release them as soon as they hatch, Yes.
(14:22):
Right, if it's not during the daytime.
Though it's like a little nursery on the beach that's all
enclosed with shade cloth and it's like, it's one of the most
amazing things I've ever done inmy life.
We watched them all go out to the ocean.
Thank you so much for that experience, Bevan.
It was unreal. OK?
We've had so many wild and incredible and also scary
encounters in Kamana so far. Went from the first two mornings
(14:44):
we released sea turtles into theocean, just the honey badges,
myself, our guide Mevin and a wonderful man that runs the
turtle project here and Mevins, quite good friends of him.
So we had a good lead to be ableto do this and I honestly
thought we'd be just watching from a distance and I was so
happy to be doing that. We were actually releasing the
turtles, taking him down to the ocean right on the edge of the
(15:06):
National Park and sending them on their way.
It was quite an emotional experience.
But other things that have happened is we've seen leopard,
we've had two pretty cool leopard sightings in the park.
We've worked very hard for them.I'll go into a bit more detail
in just a second. We've seen elephants, we've seen
the most incredible bird life. It's a really wild, fantastic
(15:27):
park. And today we went looking for
leopard. I'll tell you right now, I
actually am not liking leopard very much at the moment.
We spent most of the day searching for leopard in an area
that's quite remote and we really didn't take into account
the wild weather that we've beenhaving.
We've been caught in several thunderstorms, had to close the
vehicles up and batten down the hatches and stay safe.
(15:48):
We've been bogged, so stuck in the at least half a dozen times
over the last two days, but thatnothing compared to what
happened today. We got stuck at least a dozen
times between the two vehicles. Thank goodness we have a winch
to get ourselves out of situations.
We ended up in a lake. We actually drove across a lake.
It was like being in the Okavango Delta.
(16:09):
Crocodiles were swimming in front of us.
It was hectic, but it was fun. I had to do first aid twice now
on the guides. The first aid incident was our
radiator blew up yesterday because of all the hard work the
1980 Land Cruiser was doing and had to perform a bit of first
aid on some very minor sort of scalding burn from the radiator
(16:30):
that actually blew. And then today one of our guys
stepped on about A2 centimetre thorn that went right into his
foot. So my first aid kits got a
really good workout, but it was just a wild day, wild weather
and I love getting stuck in the mud.
It's one of my favorite things. I've learnt to love it and
problem solve and but today was a little bit out of control,
(16:50):
I've got to be honest. 12 times.And then at the end of the day
we hadn't seen a leopard. There he was as we're exiting
the park 5-6 meters from the main road, just sitting there
sleeping and getting up, sauntering about in low light.
Meanwhile we've been looking forthis jerk in the park all day
and here he is, the biggest maleleopard I've probably ever seen.
(17:12):
Apparently it's this thing. They're really big here.
I guess gigantism might be the right word.
Sri Lanka is an island and theseguys are the biggest predators.
So Mevan said on record, Lincolnmale leopard to the biggest on
the planet. So there he was.
After we'd spent 8 hours in the park getting stuck and surviving
crocodile attacks, here he was at the main gate.
Hello, honey Badges. It's Chief Honey Badger here,
(17:33):
Bobby Jo. And I'm connecting a view on the
road to Polonwara. I think that's how you pronounce
it. We're going to a lovely heritage
temple today. I don't know too much about it,
but I'm gonna be learning all about it when we get there.
And then we're heading to our last National Park and the next
few days called Bipart 2, which is north of Colombo.
We have just finished four nights staying in Aragon Bay and
then three full days on safari in Kumarna National Park.
(17:56):
And as mentioned previously, it's probably one of my favorite
parks I've ever been to. It's stunning.
The landscape is spectacular, the wildlife's great, but we had
one hell of an adventure. The weather has been a little
bit wild. We have experienced a lot of
rain and the roads were under and it was pretty hectic.
Lynn, how did you find Kamana? Oh, it was a wonderful place and
(18:18):
we had some great experiences there.
What? Was your highlight.
Probably the turtles. 2 morningsin a row we got to participate
in the releasing of the green sea turtles into the ocean.
Did you think you'd do that though?
No, you probably sent it on telly.
Did you ever think you'd be there releasing it?
Normally the turtles do it naturally, but this is to save
(18:40):
the turtle eggs from predators and make sure that some get back
into the ocean. And it was just such a great
experience. I heard you last night saying I
wonder what the turtles are doing now.
They're just. Constantly in your mind because
you get to hold one and release it yourself into the water and
you just think, I wonder if something got him or is he OK
(19:02):
or. What else was a highlight for
you? What?
What other critters did you enjoy photographing and
observing? There was some.
Great birds and great opportunities to get them close
up. So it was a a different
experience. Not as much wildlife that I'm
used to. So it was easy to focus more on
the birds and not be thinking, oh, let's get to the next slide
(19:22):
of cheetah or leopard or whatevers.
And right now you're wearing basically like a leopard pre
cheetah print top top. I want to head over to Maxine
and see what her kind of thoughts were on Commander and
her highlights and what you thought over all of the park.
The lightning show last night was absolutely spectacular.
I actually let out almost a scream of excitement, but that
was just spirit. What do you mean almost?
You did a guide, was a guide, had trauma over it.
(19:45):
Alright. Traumatised the guide over the
lightning show. The releasing of the baby
turtles was pretty amazing because that resonates with my
compassion for conservation, care and awareness.
So to be involved with somethinglike that on such a personal
level. In a magnificent environment was
very special. How's your photography?
Going I'm loving it, the diversity of wildlife so far and
(20:07):
again I'm going to refer to Lynn.
I'm not buying the twitcher uniform, but taking the photos
of the birds has been spectacular.
Trying to improve my panning, not succeeding but getting some
good shots. Lynn made-up a bird species
yesterday. Well, was it the mustard headed
bee it's supposed to be? She thought it was a cinnamon.
(20:28):
Cinnamon. Chested, cinnamon chested.
She was calling it a mustard headed bee.
So we have a new species, man. Yeah.
All right, let's get to the tailend of things here.
We had a really crazy wild day yesterday.
We went in search like Mevin. Like usual, our guides get
obsessed with certain species. And Mevin is the leopard man of
Sri Lanka, really. So he wanted to go and see a
(20:49):
leopard, one of his favourite leopards, a male that was in an
area that we couldn't really getto because the road was
underwater. Unfortunately, we didn't find
that lipid, but we got stuck over a dozen.
Times, but you know, that's partof the adventure.
It was spectacular. We got to drive through.
Was it almost ocean? Being in the back of a Hilux,
sitting up there looking around where we're going, listening to
(21:12):
lingo, where are we going? What are we doing?
And it was just an amazing experience.
It's something that's made this trip really special.
I have to admit I was getting a little bit over how many times
we got bogged, but watching the ability of the guys that we were
with to get us out of sticky situations was pretty amazing.
I actually was getting over it, to be honest.
(21:33):
I find that situation fun, but to the radiator had cracked the
day before. Sanju, the guide driver of the
car, he's also a mechanic. So he spent a day fixing that
and we got it back on the road yesterday to get it stuck about
12 times. But it has a winch, which
actually I've never been in a vehicle where you've winched
yourself out on trees. And he was finding all sorts of
things to winch. So every time we'd hit a soft
(21:54):
patch in the road where he knew it was no point to keep digging
the ties in, Addie got the windshield, took it over to the
closest tree and pulled us out. But it was quite comical.
At multiple times yesterday, both vehicles were stuck at the
same time. Absolutely.
So we have to winch our vehicle out, then reverse to pull the
other vehicle out. And we had so many 4 wheel
driving experts in the truck, didn't we?
(22:14):
All of us. Were managed wonderful.
I would have gone to the left, then I would have gone to the
left. I know I would have reversed
there. It's all easy to say that when
you're the passenger Princesses.Yes, Lynn, I've known you a very
long time and we've got a great friendship.
And I know that I can be a little bit more abrupt with you,
you at times or maybe just a bitsay it how it is.
But that works both ways. And I could tell you were
getting nervous and I was tryingto calm you and Liam was saying
(22:34):
I don't understand all the pointof this.
And I was like, leopards is the point.
And then everything I tried to calm you on actually ended up
happening. And you seemed pretty.
You didn't seem as stressed, I've got to say, But tell me how
you were feeling. There was a couple of times
where I was really scared that the vehicles were going to tip
over, but conversely, when we were driving through the bloody
(22:55):
water that didn't bother me at all.
What about when you saw we were driving in a lake?
From my side, I couldn't see howdeep it was.
That made me a little bit nervous.
But then quite a large crocodile, like, actually swims
out in front of our car. Did you see that?
I saw it, yeah. Did it make you nervous or not
really? Not really because unless we
were actually out of the truck and flailing around in the
water, but on my side of the truck I could see the bottom and
(23:19):
the water was actually over whatwould have been in dry times.
Just regular grassed areas. OK, so I wasn't worried on that
score. And we, I had like, I'm going to
be completely transparent here, probably the scariest moment
I've had in all my safaris. We hit a hole.
We were trying to get through mud, but unfortunately our
driver wasn't a we didn't realise how soft it was.
(23:39):
And we hit this hole quite hard and Julie and Lynn almost
catapulted out of the car. That was quite scary.
We're laughing about it now. It.
Was one of those moments. I wasn't expecting it, but all
of a sudden I was on the bloody floor in the front of the truck
and I didn't quite know and I still don't quite know how I got
there. One of our other guests and last
night asked me, did you land on your knees?
(24:00):
How are your knees? And I said, I don't know.
I think how will. Land.
I think you're actually upright when you're just stuck and
upright. But the camera and all I could
care about was my camera, is my camera broken?
And I resonated with that. But your cameras are pretty
tough. They seem to be fine.
Yeah, they seem to be fine. I.
Definitely as an operator. Learned a lot yesterday.
I got to use my first aid kit twice.
The last few days I had our guide, Duchamp.
(24:23):
He was walking around in this forest as every guy does.
I've traveled with him flip flops and had the two centimetre
thorn go into his heel and we had to do a bit of first aid
pulling that out and that was like.
In a mud pile. Yeah, and I realized my first
aid tweezers are not sharp enough.
And you know what they do like they go out to the guides, go
into their glove box and pull out a brand new Crocodile Dundee
(24:45):
knife. It's so sharp, it just started
hacking into his foot. To get this.
Thorn out. I'm going to swear here.
What pissed me off is the amountof hard work we did yesterday.
I actually I hate leopards. We were searching for this
leopard. We got stuck a dozen times.
We're in the rain, we're having a laugh, we're having a cry,
while I was having a cry and nobody else was.
And then we drive back and then there is a big male leopard in
(25:09):
the main viewing area, like probably 5 minutes from the gate
on the side of the road, in the rain, in the dark.
Meanwhile, John Smith's driven into the park.
He spent probably an hour or twoin the park.
He's casually driven in, hasn't got stuck, still dry, and spots
a leopard. That kind of a God gets on my
tits that does. But that's in the light.
In the light. But we still got him and he was
(25:31):
massive and it was like a littlereward at the end.
But I did flip that leopard, thebird, the middle finger, because
honestly, I've never looked for a cat that hard in all my life.
And this is the thing, I don't normally look for leopard.
You just drive around and they present themselves.
They let you see them. Onwards and upwards and let's
stay out of the water and mud. Today, honey Badgers, it's a
(25:53):
cheek honey badger here Bobby Joe and I'm connecting with you
on the road back to Colombo. Sadly it's the end of our Sri
Lanka wildlife safari. It has been an absolute amazing
trip. It has been also exhausting.
We have had no downtime and we've been on safari for many,
many hours in the vehicle seeingwonderful things and we're all
(26:14):
feeling a bit weary and tired. But I think I can.
Speaking for myself, my heart isfull.
We've seen lots of incredible wildlife, landscapes and we've
had a real laugh. Just finished two full days at
Car 2 National Park. Now this National Park is north
of Colombo, so highlights there for sure with the leopard.
We had some brilliant leopard sightings.
I'm gonna let the honey Badgers tell you about that.
(26:35):
And we also saw sloth bear, lotsof birds, elephants.
It was really incredible place. I'm going to hand over to
Maxine. You're sitting next to me.
I want to hear about what your highlights were at the park.
I think seeing the leopards, especially the leopard that was
lying in the middle of the road in the sand, having a nice
relaxing time was pretty special.
Nevin dictating to us what we could and couldn't do.
(26:57):
It was quite interesting in not being able to find facilities
for us to use because. We.
Couldn't move. That was quite funny.
Yeah, when we're going to too much detail, but basically
emergency toilet stops were required.
Yes, while spewing a leopard. So be sensible when you go on
Safari, make sure that you use the facilities first, otherwise
(27:17):
you'll have Mervin thinking it'squite hilarious sitting there
laughing at you. Well, the leopard was on the
road for like over an hour laying on her.
Back she was. Looking at us and she didn't
move the entire time. So we managed to duck away and
come back and that, that was great.
She was there waiting for us. Sauce Bear.
I like the messy animals, a little bit fluffy, a little bit
shy, so I found. Scruffy and aggressive like you.
(27:39):
Yes. Rude, yes, but scruffy and shy
like me I would say. How has the trip been overall?
This trip's been pretty wonderful.
I've been in quite good company.I won't go overboard about it
because they're sitting here listening to me, but really good
group of people being with you and Mevan's been excellent,
sharing information, knowledge, enhancing our skills, busy days.
(28:02):
Look, I found if you went with patience, an open mind and an
open heart, you were rewarded with really wonderful sightings.
The animals weren't just sittingthere saying, hey, here I am.
Look at me. You had to work for it.
And I particularly like that. It just means that the animals
aren't on show. They're going about their life
as they should. And you got a favorite photo
(28:24):
yet? We haven't really had a chance
to even look at our photos on laptops, to be fair.
But is it one that you know? Yes, that's I've nailed it.
I really enjoyed last night going for the night drive and
actually coming up with two images that I'm happy with and
look forward to getting them on my desktop and playing around to
enhance them a little bit. Maxine tried out the 2.8 at
night time. I think she's converted.
(28:44):
I think she's going to be comingback to Africa in August over
2.8. I quite like that lens.
It's a little bit reluctant to give it back, to be perfectly
honest, but beautiful lens I'm. Glad you did.
I did check my bag. It's there, Karen.
How you found it? Well, Part 2.
It was a beautiful part. I love the big hobach trees that
were in the water with gold and trunks, so it was marvelous from
(29:05):
a landscape perspective. It was marvelous watching the
animals in their landscape. Yeah.
How have you found Sri Lanka? You were in Sri Lanka a bit
longer than us. You did like a two weeks before
you arrived doing more cultural.It has.
Been the. Tough feet, welcoming in
country. The people have all been
marvellous. If anything, giving too much.
When you think about food and all of this sort of thing, it's
(29:27):
been almost overwhelming. Yeah, but the park was
wonderful. Well, Potsu with the animals
loved the same sighting that Maxine was mentioning around the
leopard silhouetted in the roadway, against the trees and
so on. In the white sand or the ready
sand? And what was cool about that
leopard sighting was that we found her.
She was a whole story to it. We found fresh tracks in that
(29:48):
area and then we went back around and covered an area where
she might come out from. And then after we left, she must
have stepped out onto the road the minute we left because then
when we come back around there was fresh tracks over our tyre
Marks and then finally we got her.
So it was quite special. Yeah, it really was that.
And I really enjoyed the Jackal pups too.
Oh yes, they were very, very. Cute.
(30:09):
Fiona, what did you think of well Part 2?
I loved. The forest that we drove through
on the the red Rd. down the centre and the trees meeting in
the middle overhead. Beautiful mind through the.
Trees. It was really pretty, the
leopard lying on the road for about an hour that we spent with
her and she just was on her backmost of the time, flipping from
side to side and it was just such typical cat behaviour.
It was really enjoyable, really nice part.
(30:31):
They've all been good, but they've all been a bit
different, which has been nice. I have seen some of your
pickies, they're pretty awesome.Have you got a favorite one or
one that you're excited to work on when you get back?
I really liked the. Method at Kunama.
The reflection in the water was really pretty in the water.
Lilies. My favorite photo was the jungle
fowl. The jungle fowl is like the
original chicken. Like he is the forest chicken.
(30:52):
He is like the chicken of all chickens.
And I've always struggled to photograph jungle foul because
normally when you're driving along they run into the Bush and
they get away from you and you can't be dead or just shy.
So there's this place in the middle of Opachu where everyone
stops to go to the toilet and naughty macaque monkeys try to
steal food out of the cars. And of course the Roosters have
(31:13):
loads that there might be a scrap around.
So we are able to photograph them at like really awesome
conditions. And so I just want to run
through a photographic tip for you guys on photographing Jungle
Foul. Now these cocks are absolutely
magnificent. I'm going to try to do this
without laughing. You need to find yourself a
really gorgeous, flim, flamboyant cock to photograph,
(31:36):
right? Really nice feathers.
They're really red and the blue ones are quite iridescent on the
tail. Now the cock has to have a
really erect cock. Do you want that comb to be
standing up nice and erect so you get a good shot?
Now you need to get down and dirty with the cock.
(31:56):
I say these are the directions that she actually gave us to do
taking the photos, by the way, you have to.
You have to get down and dirty with the cock and give yourself
a really low angle. Now I would suggest using a
shallow depth of field. So you want like an aperture
like 2.8. So you really want that cock to
pop from the background. Oh, laughing at my own jokes.
(32:19):
Jeez, this is bad. So yeah, you really want the
cocked pop background 2 point inaperture.
But also my top tip for photographing the jungle foul is
sometimes when they they kind ofput their little head up towards
the sky and you can catch that magnificent sort of twinkle that
(32:42):
highlights in the cock's eye right in the cock's eye.
I can't wait to share the photo with you.
It was the best cock shot of thetrip.
Did you get 1 Maxine? No dear.
For those that have just tuned in, we're talking about jungle
foul. Just to clarify, did you get 1
(33:03):
Lynn? Yes, I got one with the very
erect Crest. It's called a comb cut.
Oh Lynn, show me the photo rightnow.
She's got she's got a cop shot on her phone.
Wow. Can't wait for you to send that
to all your friends. Lynn, in all honesty, the Jungle
(33:24):
Fell are really beautiful and worth a shot.
It is the most magnificent chicken I've ever seen in my
life. It is.
They are beautiful birds. 100% agree.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the SriLanka stories as much as I loved
actually experiencing it. It was a phenomenal trip, such
an adventure and probably one ofmy best adventures yet.
The guests were amazing, we had such a laugh and we saw so much
(33:47):
incredible wildlife and the people who were unbelievable.
And Mevin is up there with one of the best guides that I've
ever had the pleasure of workingwith.
Really looking forward to putting together a Sri Lanka
trip in 2026. Mevin and I are currently
working on a plan, so stay tuned.
It's going to be happening in late July 2026.
If you'd like some early information, please get in touch
(34:08):
via e-mail info@bobbyjoesafaris.com.
Cannot wait to get to Sri Lanka again.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to hit the follow button so
you never miss an adventure. You can keep up with Bobby Joe's
wildlife photography and safari journeys on Instagram and
Facebook at Bobby Joe Safaris. And if you'd love to join one of
her photography tours or workshops, you can find all the
(34:29):
details at bobbyjoesafaris.com.
Welcome to Safari Life with Bobby Jo, where you'll get a
front row seat to some of the most breathtaking wildlife
experiences on the planet. Bobby Jo's a wildlife
photographer and safari guide, leading photography tours to
incredible destinations like theSerengeti, Patagonia, India,
Antarctica and beyond. In this podcast, she shares
(00:21):
expert photography tips, behind the scenes stories, and insights
into Wildlife Conservation. If you'd like to learn more
about her tours and workshops, visit bobbyjoesafaris.com.
G Day Honey Badgers, It's your chief honey badger here, Bobby
Joe, and I'm connecting of you from a very special place.
(00:44):
It is my first maiden voyage to Sri Lanka.
So I'm in the capital Colombo, landed last night after a pretty
lengthy time getting into the country of immigration.
That was a little bit hectic, but I'm here.
I've got 6 wonderful female honey Badgers, all repeat, yes
all wonderful guests that have travelled with me in Africa and
Asia and they're ready to tackleSri Lanka as well.
(01:06):
It's a maiden voyage which meansit's basically a research trip
and I managed to convince some of the honey Badgers to come
along and trial it with me. So it's going to be very
interesting to see how the safari goes and what we learn
along the way. The main key species that has
brought me to Sri Lanka is the Asian elephant and also the
Asian leopard. I have worked with Asian
elephants for a big chunk of my career.
(01:27):
They're very special species. I'm looking forward to taking
lots of photos and spending lotsof time with them in the parks
but also in surrounding areas. I believe there's elephants all
along the road here when you're travelling between the parks.
Super excited to do this trip. My gorgeous late best friend
Cheryl and I had planned to comehere many moons ago.
We never got around to it. So she's here with me in spirit
(01:49):
and I'm so proud I can fly the flag for our friendship here in
Sri Lanka. So it's going to be a very
special trip. I'm going to be keeping you guys
up to date with all the information from our safari to
Sri Lanka. So each park visit, I'm going to
give you the lowdown on what wasthe highlights, what we
experienced, what we've learned,funny stories, wild stories have
been too wild. But I'm really excited to offer
this destination in the years tocome.
(02:11):
So stay tuned because I'm going to be sharing with you all the
highlights and the crazy stories.
A lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to
experiencing what Shalinka has to offer.
Hello, honey Badgers. It's your chief honey badger
here, Bobby Joe. And I'm checking in with you
guys from Aragon Bay, which is on the southeast coast of Sri
(02:32):
Lanka. And we have arrived here today
after spending three nights at Yalla National Park.
So we stayed about maybe 15 minutes from the call zone of
Yalla. Sri Lanka has had some early
rains this year. It's been raining like crazy for
the last few months. So there were certain parts of
the central zone where we were supposed to go.
That's made it a bit difficult to to gain access to certain
(02:54):
roads that Mevanow guide loves to take people and lots of busy
traffic, lots of tourists comingto Yellow National Park.
So we decided to travel to the Western zone, which is known as
Zone 5, to have the park to ourselves.
My first thoughts of entering the park was it was absolutely
stunning, like no other park I'dseen before.
So much water. It was lush, it was green.
(03:16):
You had these most magnificent Peacocks displaying everywhere.
It was really stunning, beautiful park and just the
thought of knowing we could spota Sri Lankan leopard in that
park was quite exciting. Lots of beautiful green, dark
backgrounds and really nice for photography.
What I couldn't get over was theamount of diversity in birds and
just how spectacular the birds were.
(03:37):
My highlight, believe it or not in yellow was photographing the
birds, especially the Malabar Pied hornbill.
It's spectacularly large hornbill that is a resident here
in Sri Lanka, but can also be found in neighboring countries
like India. And we had some fantastic
sightings of that. We saw great, great headed fish
eagles, white bellied sea eagles, changeable Hawks,
(03:58):
crested Hawks, so many amazing birds.
And I think I'm really stoked with a shot that I got of a pair
of blue winged beaters that caught sort of a big giant mud
wasp like creature on the wing. So I've got the action shot of
it actually getting it into its beak.
So that was my highlight. Now we did see a leopard.
We worked very hard to get a leopard the first full day we
(04:19):
had. We just kept missing sightings.
It was getting a little bit frustrating, I'm not going to
lie. We would get to the site and
someone would say oh the leopardjust crossed here and we just
missed it. Finally on the last afternoon we
managed to come across a Lepidus, a beautiful female.
She was stunning and my first thoughts when she stepped out
onto the road was just how feminine she looked and how
(04:39):
dainty she was. She was very light in colour,
gorgeous eyes and she was. It was evident that she was a
mother of Cubs so you could see that she had been nursing Cubs
and the guests were pretty excited.
Karen, what was your highlight of yellow?
There were a number of things that I really loved about Yella.
Certainly the leopardess was right up there for me because I
haven't seen a leopard in Sri Lanka before.
(05:00):
But I also really loved the Christian serpent eagle that we
saw. Yeah, he was amazing to
actually. We saw observing and then catch
a snake and devour it in front of us on the.
Ground. That was an incredible.
Thought it was amazing. There was more to yellow than
just the wildlife sightings too.I mean, there was the landscape,
(05:22):
which was absolutely spectacular, as you said.
One of my highlights as well wasat the end of the rain coming up
across the reservoir and having all of these drowned trees start
black against the sort of milk, white water and the horizon.
It was just stunning, stunning place.
And what's the name of your style of photography that you
(05:43):
love? What was it called again?
I love abstract. Photography, a word that Nancy
used yesterday, intentional camera movement ICM yes, and
I've never heard of that before,but that's the trees do that
style for those trees or you just captured.
Did a little bit of it on on those trees.
I did more of it with some of the really fine trees that we
(06:03):
saw because there were some forests that had very narrow
trunked trees all grouped closely together and they came
out beautifully from what I've seen on the back of my camera.
So I'm very excited. No, it's stunning.
And how did you what did you think of the leopard?
It got my heart pounding. She was so graceful and so
beautiful and I was amazed at how delicate her aunt ears were
(06:26):
because that she had very tiny, petite, feminine ears.
Nancy, we're going to hand over to you now.
What was your highlight? Very definitely the leopardess.
She was just gorgeous, Absolutely stunning.
I loved everything about the park, like.
The pouring raved was. Great.
You wouldn't think so, but it was.
(06:47):
It's so fun listening to the rain and watching it and then
afterwards it would clear up andyou've got to see all the bugs
and the insects and the birds all going crazy.
So it was just marvellous. Yeah, it came to life after the
rain and you got stuck yesterday, your vehicle got
stuck in the mud, right? We certainly did.
I looked across and I could see the vehicle like almost going
(07:08):
sideways as they were trying to get you out of the mud, I think.
What were you guys chasing again?
Was it sloth there? Sloth there?
There was evidence of sloth. Unfortunately, we didn't see 1
yet. Stop paw prints.
Yeah, and poo. And software poo.
Did you enjoy the birding? I love the birding.
The birding is unbelievable. I've never seen such a wonderful
diversity. Raptors and hornbills and you
(07:30):
know, reheaters. I am delighted with what I
captured so far. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Well, we're on our way to Kumana, so hopefully we can get
some more. Fiona, what was your Firelights
of Yellow? Obviously the leopardess,
they're my favorite big cat and was lucky enough to see too,
even though the first one was like a two second viewing.
But I'm going to surprise myselfand say the birds.
(07:51):
I've really enjoyed. Photographing the birds this.
Time. So this is actually being
recorded. I have evidence that you just
said that. I know I did.
Dealt with, I should say it or not, but no, it's been good and
the company's been great. It's been a great.
Trip so far, yeah, it's been awesome and we're now on our way
to Kumana. Same ecosystem is yellow, same
kind of space as we're going to see and it's going to be
fabulous. We've got four nights staying at
Aragon Bay. We're literally on the beach,
(08:13):
it's a surfing beach apparently it's offseason, which I'm a bit
disappointed about, but we have to take a drive to Kumana and
yeah, 3 full day safaris. The safaris here are quite
hectic because normally, I guessAfrican style, you would get
back to your room just before lunch and you have a few hours
rest here. We're doing full day safaris.
We haven't killed each other yet.
There's been. Yeah, we're hanging in.
(08:34):
We're hanging in there. Joe.
Check back in with you in a few days, though.
Hello, Megan. Hello.
Hi, We're driving through a strip of forest that connects
the two parks and we're seeing quite an unbelievable sight.
Something I've been seeing on the BBC and on YouTube videos
pretty much all my life since I was younger, is these big bull
(08:54):
elephants on the road. And they're kind of like traffic
police or trolls and they're stopping vehicles and demanding
food. It's like, you know, pay your
toll fees on these roads. It's fascinating to watch, but
it's also incredibly scary. Maven, how long have they been
doing this for? This started a long time back,
more than 20 years back with onesingle elephant used to coming
(09:16):
onto the road and people have been throwing fruits at them.
It's basically this road connects to a main pilgrimage
area called Kataragama, where thousands of pilgrimages come to
worship this temple. So all of these people bring
fruits to offer the gods. Oh, he comes one.
Right now. Yeah, just.
(09:38):
One of the reasons they have throw fruits at them and they
have got used to it. Right now, as I'm talking to
you, an elephant has just stepped onto the road and is
trying to get us to stop. How crazy.
And Levin, you were saying that they block the they block the
car. If you don't fast enough,
they'll stand there and block it.
Yes, then he started being more wiser rather than waiting for
(09:59):
the wood and just starting to block the vehicle and just grab
the fruit from them. So that's what is happening,
what you're seeing right now, and there are more elephants
have got used to it doing that now.
It's unbelievable. I've worked with elephants for a
big chunk of my zookeeping career.
I know how strong they are. I've seen what they can do to
each other and alone people. And just the other day, the
guests and I, we watched a groupof local tourists.
(10:22):
What is that that you can? See.
Wow. They have broken down the
windshield sometimes to grab thefood and yeah, just just steal
it. Steal it.
That's so we've just driven pasta whole heap of windshield on
the road that the elephants havebroken.
This is the problem, right? When you don't pay the correct
toll or if they're not happy with the amount of toll that
you've paid, they will smash your windscreen.
(10:43):
Literally 2 days ago we watched some tourists pull up.
We saw them with their bananas. They pulled up and the elephants
put their trunk into the car andtook the bananas off them.
And the trunk has up to 100,000 mussels.
You know, it's like it is the strongest appendage on the
planet. People don't realize that they
can just grab you, RIP you out of that vehicle and hurl you
like probably, I don't know, a good 1015 meters into the air.
(11:06):
Like it's seriously dangerous stuff.
Have people been seriously injured?
No, but there have been incidents where they have
toppled the vehicles and not directly targeting any human or
harming any humans that that does not happen.
But it can happen in the, we never know.
And you think this is all alone behaviour from each other like
this? What we're noticing, it's just
bulls doing this. There's no cows out here.
(11:29):
They're too busy being mums and getting on with life and not
begging on the road. Exactly, Yeah.
And are they hanging out here oncertain days?
Do you think they're predicting when the most traffic's coming
through? Basically, they come during less
hot hours of the day, but they know when it's a weekend, it's
not that they know that it's a Saturday or Sunday, but they
(11:49):
know most of the pilgrimage comeon those days.
That's that. There's going to be traffic, so
a lot of people will be stoppingand so there'll be more
elephants with more blockage on the road.
And for those that are thinking about travelling to Sri Lanka,
highly suggest you come with me.But if you're going to be
travelling here, please don't feed them.
We met some tourists which in defence of them, they didn't
(12:09):
know their guides gave them bananas to feed to the elephants
and we gave them a pretty quick polite education on do not feed
them. I mean This is why there is such
huge elephant conflict in this area, because we basically by
feeding them we're not helping them at all, we're making life
worse for them. Is there any penalties if people
are caught feeding them? Authorities have done so many
things like finding people who are feeding them, and also at
(12:33):
some point they're trying to chase away the elephants by
throwing Thunder flashes at them, not encouraging them to
come near the roads. But it's not a practical thing
to do every day. Awareness is the best thing I
believe. Like not to feed animals.
And you were saying to me, I think yesterday that the
elephants, I mean, we all know this.
So highly intelligent beings, more than we even know about,
(12:53):
they can recognize the difference with vehicles.
So they know if it's the Rangerscar and they know that, oh, here
we go. We got to go, boys.
The Rangers are about to throw some crackers at us.
And they know with safari jeeps,which generally don't feed and
they know the minivans where thefood's AT.
And so just now we come past, they were targeting us and
almost trying to block us. But we're pretty savvy with it.
So far we've seen what, 3 or 4? And we've only been driving for
(13:15):
not even an hour. Share some videos and photos of
this situation, which needs to improve for sure.
Hello, honey Badges. I'm connecting a view from a
really wonderful morning here inSri Lanka.
We're at Kumara National Park, and we just had the most
authentic, incredible experience.
There were tears. We got to release a clutch of
olive Ridley sea turtles and greenstone sea turtles into the
(13:39):
ocean. The guests and I actually picked
them up and let them make their way to the ocean.
It was amazing. Mevin, thank you so much.
It was incredible. How many do you think have we
had that basket there? Were 22, which has early in the
morning. To this so they hatched this
morning on the way when we're onthe way here.
Yeah, that's incredible. And they all made it out of the
out of the shell. Yeah.
What's the name of the beach we're at right now?
It's called Kiriga Bay. And their project here is a
(14:01):
what? Why are they collecting the the
eggs? Because this is the National
Park, so that's lots of other predators are here in the beach.
And then you get the jackals, the wild boar.
They dig them up and eat. So they bring them to a pen like
that and they bury them with theexact replica of the that nest
that they had and then they released.
Them and they have to release them as soon as they hatch, Yes.
(14:22):
Right, if it's not during the daytime.
Though it's like a little nursery on the beach that's all
enclosed with shade cloth and it's like, it's one of the most
amazing things I've ever done inmy life.
We watched them all go out to the ocean.
Thank you so much for that experience, Bevan.
It was unreal. OK?
We've had so many wild and incredible and also scary
encounters in Kamana so far. Went from the first two mornings
(14:44):
we released sea turtles into theocean, just the honey badges,
myself, our guide Mevin and a wonderful man that runs the
turtle project here and Mevins, quite good friends of him.
So we had a good lead to be ableto do this and I honestly
thought we'd be just watching from a distance and I was so
happy to be doing that. We were actually releasing the
turtles, taking him down to the ocean right on the edge of the
(15:06):
National Park and sending them on their way.
It was quite an emotional experience.
But other things that have happened is we've seen leopard,
we've had two pretty cool leopard sightings in the park.
We've worked very hard for them.I'll go into a bit more detail
in just a second. We've seen elephants, we've seen
the most incredible bird life. It's a really wild, fantastic
(15:27):
park. And today we went looking for
leopard. I'll tell you right now, I
actually am not liking leopard very much at the moment.
We spent most of the day searching for leopard in an area
that's quite remote and we really didn't take into account
the wild weather that we've beenhaving.
We've been caught in several thunderstorms, had to close the
vehicles up and batten down the hatches and stay safe.
(15:48):
We've been bogged, so stuck in the at least half a dozen times
over the last two days, but thatnothing compared to what
happened today. We got stuck at least a dozen
times between the two vehicles. Thank goodness we have a winch
to get ourselves out of situations.
We ended up in a lake. We actually drove across a lake.
It was like being in the Okavango Delta.
(16:09):
Crocodiles were swimming in front of us.
It was hectic, but it was fun. I had to do first aid twice now
on the guides. The first aid incident was our
radiator blew up yesterday because of all the hard work the
1980 Land Cruiser was doing and had to perform a bit of first
aid on some very minor sort of scalding burn from the radiator
(16:30):
that actually blew. And then today one of our guys
stepped on about A2 centimetre thorn that went right into his
foot. So my first aid kits got a
really good workout, but it was just a wild day, wild weather
and I love getting stuck in the mud.
It's one of my favorite things. I've learnt to love it and
problem solve and but today was a little bit out of control,
(16:50):
I've got to be honest. 12 times.And then at the end of the day
we hadn't seen a leopard. There he was as we're exiting
the park 5-6 meters from the main road, just sitting there
sleeping and getting up, sauntering about in low light.
Meanwhile we've been looking forthis jerk in the park all day
and here he is, the biggest maleleopard I've probably ever seen.
(17:12):
Apparently it's this thing. They're really big here.
I guess gigantism might be the right word.
Sri Lanka is an island and theseguys are the biggest predators.
So Mevan said on record, Lincolnmale leopard to the biggest on
the planet. So there he was.
After we'd spent 8 hours in the park getting stuck and surviving
crocodile attacks, here he was at the main gate.
Hello, honey Badges. It's Chief Honey Badger here,
(17:33):
Bobby Jo. And I'm connecting a view on the
road to Polonwara. I think that's how you pronounce
it. We're going to a lovely heritage
temple today. I don't know too much about it,
but I'm gonna be learning all about it when we get there.
And then we're heading to our last National Park and the next
few days called Bipart 2, which is north of Colombo.
We have just finished four nights staying in Aragon Bay and
then three full days on safari in Kumarna National Park.
(17:56):
And as mentioned previously, it's probably one of my favorite
parks I've ever been to. It's stunning.
The landscape is spectacular, the wildlife's great, but we had
one hell of an adventure. The weather has been a little
bit wild. We have experienced a lot of
rain and the roads were under and it was pretty hectic.
Lynn, how did you find Kamana? Oh, it was a wonderful place and
(18:18):
we had some great experiences there.
What? Was your highlight.
Probably the turtles. 2 morningsin a row we got to participate
in the releasing of the green sea turtles into the ocean.
Did you think you'd do that though?
No, you probably sent it on telly.
Did you ever think you'd be there releasing it?
Normally the turtles do it naturally, but this is to save
(18:40):
the turtle eggs from predators and make sure that some get back
into the ocean. And it was just such a great
experience. I heard you last night saying I
wonder what the turtles are doing now.
They're just. Constantly in your mind because
you get to hold one and release it yourself into the water and
you just think, I wonder if something got him or is he OK
(19:02):
or. What else was a highlight for
you? What?
What other critters did you enjoy photographing and
observing? There was some.
Great birds and great opportunities to get them close
up. So it was a a different
experience. Not as much wildlife that I'm
used to. So it was easy to focus more on
the birds and not be thinking, oh, let's get to the next slide
(19:22):
of cheetah or leopard or whatevers.
And right now you're wearing basically like a leopard pre
cheetah print top top. I want to head over to Maxine
and see what her kind of thoughts were on Commander and
her highlights and what you thought over all of the park.
The lightning show last night was absolutely spectacular.
I actually let out almost a scream of excitement, but that
was just spirit. What do you mean almost?
You did a guide, was a guide, had trauma over it.
(19:45):
Alright. Traumatised the guide over the
lightning show. The releasing of the baby
turtles was pretty amazing because that resonates with my
compassion for conservation, care and awareness.
So to be involved with somethinglike that on such a personal
level. In a magnificent environment was
very special. How's your photography?
Going I'm loving it, the diversity of wildlife so far and
(20:07):
again I'm going to refer to Lynn.
I'm not buying the twitcher uniform, but taking the photos
of the birds has been spectacular.
Trying to improve my panning, not succeeding but getting some
good shots. Lynn made-up a bird species
yesterday. Well, was it the mustard headed
bee it's supposed to be? She thought it was a cinnamon.
(20:28):
Cinnamon. Chested, cinnamon chested.
She was calling it a mustard headed bee.
So we have a new species, man. Yeah.
All right, let's get to the tailend of things here.
We had a really crazy wild day yesterday.
We went in search like Mevin. Like usual, our guides get
obsessed with certain species. And Mevin is the leopard man of
Sri Lanka, really. So he wanted to go and see a
(20:49):
leopard, one of his favourite leopards, a male that was in an
area that we couldn't really getto because the road was
underwater. Unfortunately, we didn't find
that lipid, but we got stuck over a dozen.
Times, but you know, that's partof the adventure.
It was spectacular. We got to drive through.
Was it almost ocean? Being in the back of a Hilux,
sitting up there looking around where we're going, listening to
(21:12):
lingo, where are we going? What are we doing?
And it was just an amazing experience.
It's something that's made this trip really special.
I have to admit I was getting a little bit over how many times
we got bogged, but watching the ability of the guys that we were
with to get us out of sticky situations was pretty amazing.
I actually was getting over it, to be honest.
(21:33):
I find that situation fun, but to the radiator had cracked the
day before. Sanju, the guide driver of the
car, he's also a mechanic. So he spent a day fixing that
and we got it back on the road yesterday to get it stuck about
12 times. But it has a winch, which
actually I've never been in a vehicle where you've winched
yourself out on trees. And he was finding all sorts of
things to winch. So every time we'd hit a soft
(21:54):
patch in the road where he knew it was no point to keep digging
the ties in, Addie got the windshield, took it over to the
closest tree and pulled us out. But it was quite comical.
At multiple times yesterday, both vehicles were stuck at the
same time. Absolutely.
So we have to winch our vehicle out, then reverse to pull the
other vehicle out. And we had so many 4 wheel
driving experts in the truck, didn't we?
(22:14):
All of us. Were managed wonderful.
I would have gone to the left, then I would have gone to the
left. I know I would have reversed
there. It's all easy to say that when
you're the passenger Princesses.Yes, Lynn, I've known you a very
long time and we've got a great friendship.
And I know that I can be a little bit more abrupt with you,
you at times or maybe just a bitsay it how it is.
But that works both ways. And I could tell you were
getting nervous and I was tryingto calm you and Liam was saying
(22:34):
I don't understand all the pointof this.
And I was like, leopards is the point.
And then everything I tried to calm you on actually ended up
happening. And you seemed pretty.
You didn't seem as stressed, I've got to say, But tell me how
you were feeling. There was a couple of times
where I was really scared that the vehicles were going to tip
over, but conversely, when we were driving through the bloody
(22:55):
water that didn't bother me at all.
What about when you saw we were driving in a lake?
From my side, I couldn't see howdeep it was.
That made me a little bit nervous.
But then quite a large crocodile, like, actually swims
out in front of our car. Did you see that?
I saw it, yeah. Did it make you nervous or not
really? Not really because unless we
were actually out of the truck and flailing around in the
water, but on my side of the truck I could see the bottom and
(23:19):
the water was actually over whatwould have been in dry times.
Just regular grassed areas. OK, so I wasn't worried on that
score. And we, I had like, I'm going to
be completely transparent here, probably the scariest moment
I've had in all my safaris. We hit a hole.
We were trying to get through mud, but unfortunately our
driver wasn't a we didn't realise how soft it was.
(23:39):
And we hit this hole quite hard and Julie and Lynn almost
catapulted out of the car. That was quite scary.
We're laughing about it now. It.
Was one of those moments. I wasn't expecting it, but all
of a sudden I was on the bloody floor in the front of the truck
and I didn't quite know and I still don't quite know how I got
there. One of our other guests and last
night asked me, did you land on your knees?
(24:00):
How are your knees? And I said, I don't know.
I think how will. Land.
I think you're actually upright when you're just stuck and
upright. But the camera and all I could
care about was my camera, is my camera broken?
And I resonated with that. But your cameras are pretty
tough. They seem to be fine.
Yeah, they seem to be fine. I.
Definitely as an operator. Learned a lot yesterday.
I got to use my first aid kit twice.
The last few days I had our guide, Duchamp.
(24:23):
He was walking around in this forest as every guy does.
I've traveled with him flip flops and had the two centimetre
thorn go into his heel and we had to do a bit of first aid
pulling that out and that was like.
In a mud pile. Yeah, and I realized my first
aid tweezers are not sharp enough.
And you know what they do like they go out to the guides, go
into their glove box and pull out a brand new Crocodile Dundee
(24:45):
knife. It's so sharp, it just started
hacking into his foot. To get this.
Thorn out. I'm going to swear here.
What pissed me off is the amountof hard work we did yesterday.
I actually I hate leopards. We were searching for this
leopard. We got stuck a dozen times.
We're in the rain, we're having a laugh, we're having a cry,
while I was having a cry and nobody else was.
And then we drive back and then there is a big male leopard in
(25:09):
the main viewing area, like probably 5 minutes from the gate
on the side of the road, in the rain, in the dark.
Meanwhile, John Smith's driven into the park.
He spent probably an hour or twoin the park.
He's casually driven in, hasn't got stuck, still dry, and spots
a leopard. That kind of a God gets on my
tits that does. But that's in the light.
In the light. But we still got him and he was
(25:31):
massive and it was like a littlereward at the end.
But I did flip that leopard, thebird, the middle finger, because
honestly, I've never looked for a cat that hard in all my life.
And this is the thing, I don't normally look for leopard.
You just drive around and they present themselves.
They let you see them. Onwards and upwards and let's
stay out of the water and mud. Today, honey Badgers, it's a
(25:53):
cheek honey badger here Bobby Joe and I'm connecting with you
on the road back to Colombo. Sadly it's the end of our Sri
Lanka wildlife safari. It has been an absolute amazing
trip. It has been also exhausting.
We have had no downtime and we've been on safari for many,
many hours in the vehicle seeingwonderful things and we're all
(26:14):
feeling a bit weary and tired. But I think I can.
Speaking for myself, my heart isfull.
We've seen lots of incredible wildlife, landscapes and we've
had a real laugh. Just finished two full days at
Car 2 National Park. Now this National Park is north
of Colombo, so highlights there for sure with the leopard.
We had some brilliant leopard sightings.
I'm gonna let the honey Badgers tell you about that.
(26:35):
And we also saw sloth bear, lotsof birds, elephants.
It was really incredible place. I'm going to hand over to
Maxine. You're sitting next to me.
I want to hear about what your highlights were at the park.
I think seeing the leopards, especially the leopard that was
lying in the middle of the road in the sand, having a nice
relaxing time was pretty special.
Nevin dictating to us what we could and couldn't do.
(26:57):
It was quite interesting in not being able to find facilities
for us to use because. We.
Couldn't move. That was quite funny.
Yeah, when we're going to too much detail, but basically
emergency toilet stops were required.
Yes, while spewing a leopard. So be sensible when you go on
Safari, make sure that you use the facilities first, otherwise
(27:17):
you'll have Mervin thinking it'squite hilarious sitting there
laughing at you. Well, the leopard was on the
road for like over an hour laying on her.
Back she was. Looking at us and she didn't
move the entire time. So we managed to duck away and
come back and that, that was great.
She was there waiting for us. Sauce Bear.
I like the messy animals, a little bit fluffy, a little bit
shy, so I found. Scruffy and aggressive like you.
(27:39):
Yes. Rude, yes, but scruffy and shy
like me I would say. How has the trip been overall?
This trip's been pretty wonderful.
I've been in quite good company.I won't go overboard about it
because they're sitting here listening to me, but really good
group of people being with you and Mevan's been excellent,
sharing information, knowledge, enhancing our skills, busy days.
(28:02):
Look, I found if you went with patience, an open mind and an
open heart, you were rewarded with really wonderful sightings.
The animals weren't just sittingthere saying, hey, here I am.
Look at me. You had to work for it.
And I particularly like that. It just means that the animals
aren't on show. They're going about their life
as they should. And you got a favorite photo
(28:24):
yet? We haven't really had a chance
to even look at our photos on laptops, to be fair.
But is it one that you know? Yes, that's I've nailed it.
I really enjoyed last night going for the night drive and
actually coming up with two images that I'm happy with and
look forward to getting them on my desktop and playing around to
enhance them a little bit. Maxine tried out the 2.8 at
night time. I think she's converted.
(28:44):
I think she's going to be comingback to Africa in August over
2.8. I quite like that lens.
It's a little bit reluctant to give it back, to be perfectly
honest, but beautiful lens I'm. Glad you did.
I did check my bag. It's there, Karen.
How you found it? Well, Part 2.
It was a beautiful part. I love the big hobach trees that
were in the water with gold and trunks, so it was marvelous from
(29:05):
a landscape perspective. It was marvelous watching the
animals in their landscape. Yeah.
How have you found Sri Lanka? You were in Sri Lanka a bit
longer than us. You did like a two weeks before
you arrived doing more cultural.It has.
Been the. Tough feet, welcoming in
country. The people have all been
marvellous. If anything, giving too much.
When you think about food and all of this sort of thing, it's
(29:27):
been almost overwhelming. Yeah, but the park was
wonderful. Well, Potsu with the animals
loved the same sighting that Maxine was mentioning around the
leopard silhouetted in the roadway, against the trees and
so on. In the white sand or the ready
sand? And what was cool about that
leopard sighting was that we found her.
She was a whole story to it. We found fresh tracks in that
(29:48):
area and then we went back around and covered an area where
she might come out from. And then after we left, she must
have stepped out onto the road the minute we left because then
when we come back around there was fresh tracks over our tyre
Marks and then finally we got her.
So it was quite special. Yeah, it really was that.
And I really enjoyed the Jackal pups too.
Oh yes, they were very, very. Cute.
(30:09):
Fiona, what did you think of well Part 2?
I loved. The forest that we drove through
on the the red Rd. down the centre and the trees meeting in
the middle overhead. Beautiful mind through the.
Trees. It was really pretty, the
leopard lying on the road for about an hour that we spent with
her and she just was on her backmost of the time, flipping from
side to side and it was just such typical cat behaviour.
It was really enjoyable, really nice part.
(30:31):
They've all been good, but they've all been a bit
different, which has been nice. I have seen some of your
pickies, they're pretty awesome.Have you got a favorite one or
one that you're excited to work on when you get back?
I really liked the. Method at Kunama.
The reflection in the water was really pretty in the water.
Lilies. My favorite photo was the jungle
fowl. The jungle fowl is like the
original chicken. Like he is the forest chicken.
(30:52):
He is like the chicken of all chickens.
And I've always struggled to photograph jungle foul because
normally when you're driving along they run into the Bush and
they get away from you and you can't be dead or just shy.
So there's this place in the middle of Opachu where everyone
stops to go to the toilet and naughty macaque monkeys try to
steal food out of the cars. And of course the Roosters have
(31:13):
loads that there might be a scrap around.
So we are able to photograph them at like really awesome
conditions. And so I just want to run
through a photographic tip for you guys on photographing Jungle
Foul. Now these cocks are absolutely
magnificent. I'm going to try to do this
without laughing. You need to find yourself a
really gorgeous, flim, flamboyant cock to photograph,
(31:36):
right? Really nice feathers.
They're really red and the blue ones are quite iridescent on the
tail. Now the cock has to have a
really erect cock. Do you want that comb to be
standing up nice and erect so you get a good shot?
Now you need to get down and dirty with the cock.
(31:56):
I say these are the directions that she actually gave us to do
taking the photos, by the way, you have to.
You have to get down and dirty with the cock and give yourself
a really low angle. Now I would suggest using a
shallow depth of field. So you want like an aperture
like 2.8. So you really want that cock to
pop from the background. Oh, laughing at my own jokes.
(32:19):
Jeez, this is bad. So yeah, you really want the
cocked pop background 2 point inaperture.
But also my top tip for photographing the jungle foul is
sometimes when they they kind ofput their little head up towards
the sky and you can catch that magnificent sort of twinkle that
(32:42):
highlights in the cock's eye right in the cock's eye.
I can't wait to share the photo with you.
It was the best cock shot of thetrip.
Did you get 1 Maxine? No dear.
For those that have just tuned in, we're talking about jungle
foul. Just to clarify, did you get 1
(33:03):
Lynn? Yes, I got one with the very
erect Crest. It's called a comb cut.
Oh Lynn, show me the photo rightnow.
She's got she's got a cop shot on her phone.
Wow. Can't wait for you to send that
to all your friends. Lynn, in all honesty, the Jungle
(33:24):
Fell are really beautiful and worth a shot.
It is the most magnificent chicken I've ever seen in my
life. It is.
They are beautiful birds. 100% agree.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the SriLanka stories as much as I loved
actually experiencing it. It was a phenomenal trip, such
an adventure and probably one ofmy best adventures yet.
The guests were amazing, we had such a laugh and we saw so much
(33:47):
incredible wildlife and the people who were unbelievable.
And Mevin is up there with one of the best guides that I've
ever had the pleasure of workingwith.
Really looking forward to putting together a Sri Lanka
trip in 2026. Mevin and I are currently
working on a plan, so stay tuned.
It's going to be happening in late July 2026.
If you'd like some early information, please get in touch
(34:08):
via e-mail info@bobbyjoesafaris.com.
Cannot wait to get to Sri Lanka again.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to hit the follow button so
you never miss an adventure. You can keep up with Bobby Joe's
wildlife photography and safari journeys on Instagram and
Facebook at Bobby Joe Safaris. And if you'd love to join one of
her photography tours or workshops, you can find all the
(34:29):
details at bobbyjoesafaris.com.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.