May 12, 2025 • 41 mins
What happens when your two podcast worlds collide in a leopard-print shirt and a Camilla dress? You get this absolute belter of an episode.
In this one, I’m back on the Central Coast catching up with Rabbit, my podcast mentor, editor and all-round legend, and giving him a sneak peek at some of the photos from my very first solo exhibition. From the hilarious backstory behind how we met to deep chats about art, animals and the stories behind the shots, this one’s packed.
We’ll take you behind the lens on some of the wildest photos in the exhibition, including:
- A black leopard emerging from the dark like a ghost
- A giraffe giving birth in real time
- My once-in-a-lifetime bongo sighting (yes, I cried)
- A tiger charging through water in India’s Ranthambore National Park
- And the real stories behind each image, from the terrifying to the hilarious
Come join me! 🦁 Instagram | 🐘 Facebook | 🦡 Safari Tours
And if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review and share it with your fellow safari lovers!
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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.
Good day, honey Badgers. It's your chief honey badger,
Bobby Joe here, and I'm connecting with you from my old
(00:43):
stomping grounds, the Central Coast.
Been visiting my family, my sister, and I'm catching up with
AVIP. Great company here with Rabs.
Where it all began. Yeah, Rabs, I love you, man.
Like, seriously. We met at the zoo at the start
of the year and you have made one of my many dreams come true
with the podcast. It's going really well and it's
(01:05):
got great feedback. I'm really enjoying it and it's
all thanks to you. Thank you.
But it goes both ways. So massive thank you to you as
well because you were the first for as far as me.
So I've got my own podcast that I put out and it's 183 episodes.
Out now. This is my 6th 1, I think.
Lucky number six, yeah. But I've been doing them three a
(01:26):
week for nearly a year and a half.
And I had never even thought about, you know, editing,
producing, publishing other people's podcasts.
And it was only through the conversation with you that it
happened. And in the next couple of weeks,
I'll be up to six podcasts. Wow, that's amazing.
Well done. But you, yeah, you made all of
(01:48):
this happen. I bribed him with hippos.
Yeah, yeah, I love. Hippos.
I want him over with hippos. It always works.
And you know what? It's.
So I always take my dates to seethe hippos true story.
When you not joking when you're sending messages through from
when you're over in Africa or wherever you are overseas on
what's happened and it's the voice messages and stuff.
(02:11):
I have this big smile on my face.
Like I really enjoy it. I enjoy the editing and putting
out your episodes and everythingas well.
So yeah, you've opened that up for me to do that for other
people. Yeah, it's felt so natural, to
be honest. Like it's been a great
connection. Like as soon as I met you 2,
like just now just dropping a message.
Even if I'm talking random shit in Africa, I could send you a
message. And it's like you understand me
(02:32):
or. And I think we're quite similar
in the fact that I'll have something just come into my
brain and I'll just message you about it.
But then I get the same from youas well.
Oh yeah, yeah. So we do operate on the same
page. And yeah, I'm really stoked with
what we've achieved so far. And it's it's been wonderful.
And I've been loving interviewing people.
And you're very good at it. And you also, you have, I've
(02:53):
said it so many times and I've told you this as well.
You've got a really good voice, really, really easy to listen
to. And I've had other people say
that as well. Yeah, that's great, because you
did say I had a head for radio. I did.
Not say that. No, I just made that.
Bobby Joe said I could do video episodes on just stick to audio
I reckon. Yeah, but we're sitting here in
the van, back in the van where it all started, jumping into
(03:15):
vans with men. That's.
Yeah, back here in the little van.
And we just did a podcast for your.
Yeah, for your. Yeah.
And in that we started running through some of the photos that
you've got for your photographicexhibition that's coming up.
Or is it already out by the timethis is?
Nope. So it's coming up next Saturday,
May 17th. I have my very first solo
photographic exhibition, so thishas been a long time coming.
(03:38):
I've been nervous about having an exhibition.
I guess like most artists, you love your work, but then you get
a bit nervous putting it out there.
And people are quite surprised about that.
When I say, oh, I'm nervous about showing my photos, I am
because it's, you know, it's your work.
You're putting a price tag on it.
So it's the reality of that is that you want your photos to
sell, but you start doubting almost, you know, putting too
(03:58):
much money on them. And then you start talking about
the stories behind the photos and what it takes to get the
shots. And you go, Oh no, this thing's
worth $1,000,000. Yeah, I get it as well.
What I don't get out of that is when like you're saying, like
nervous about people seeing the photos, you know, you can look
at them and go, that's an incredible photo.
Yeah, yesterday I went to the gallery to finish signing them.
(04:19):
So all the prints framed and they've got a beautiful mount
and the frames have been chosen to match each photo and I've
signed them. Even signing the signature was a
big deal for me because I've gotsuch a tiny little puny
signature and I was paranoid about, oh, it looks terrible.
But I was signing the prints andthe gallery owner and the framer
whose gallery and his wife, Donna, she was having a giggle
(04:41):
every time I would pull the photo back and the next time
would be revealed. I was like, Oh my God, it's
beautiful. And I was actually.
Take your own photo. Yes, yeah.
And I was like, I'm so up myselfright now, but I actually really
loved every single shot. And it took me back to that
moment and I said, you know what, if nobody buys my prints,
if they don't do well, I'm putting them in my house because
these are amazing. So actually it was a reality
(05:04):
yesterday. It was big reality check and I
was super happy when I drove away going wow, I actually can
take a photo. That's awesome.
I'm gonna struggle not to go into question asking mode 'cause
it's what I do. Yeah.
This is your podcast. Interviewing each other.
Yeah, yeah. So just a bit of behind the
scenes of that. So do you have to pay for them
to be all done up and into prints and and the frames and
(05:26):
all that sort of thing? And then if they don't sell, you
just have to wear that cost. This is one of the reasons why I
have balked at having a exhibition in Dubbo.
I once decked out a nice cafe with all my artwork and that was
expensive. That was about $2000 back.
That was many years ago and I sold, I got my money back.
I sold most of them. Some of them went missing off
(05:47):
walls and it was just messy and I just left me.
It was a kind of a negative experience and I thought, oh,
and then someone said you shouldreally do a my friend Karen,
who's coming all the way from Perth to come to the exhibition,
love her. She's the best.
And she'll be listening to this podcast.
Hello Karen. And she really put the pressure
on me now for the last couple ofyears.
She's one of my biggest fans. But she's what I love about
(06:10):
Karen is she doesn't sugarcoat anything.
She just tells me exactly how itis and said you need to pull
your finger out and do an exhibition like you've got this
body of work and people are not seeing it.
So she encouraged me to to get going and then it sort of
another sliding doors moment where I met Wayne, who's the
gallery owner, and they sort of come together and yeah, it's.
Just like when you said in my podcast, the most recent one, we
were talking about all of this and how we met.
(06:31):
It is those sliding doors moments.
But you gotta be open to them. Yes, they come along.
You know, you met a guy at the zoo that had a mobile podcasting
studio. We got chatting.
I said get in the van. You were really open to that.
And then you had lollies. And after that, yeah, you just,
(06:52):
you were open did. You have a confession to make
those I wasn't, I was on Hippos,was on Hippos that day.
One of my work colleagues, she was worried that you were gonna
interview her. And she said I don't really
wanna do the encounter. And she's smart and I and we're
both smart. She says to me, she heard me
talking about wanting to do a podcast for a long time.
And she goes, why don't you go and do my job for me?
(07:13):
And that way you can get some tips on starting a podcast.
So I, I wasn't actually supposedto be doing the encounter.
And I went, that's a great idea.And she was like, that is a
great idea because I don't have to do it now.
And so I went with the intentionof getting, you know, meeting
you and then just asking you a few questions, which did and it
led to this. Yeah.
So now Dee probably takes full credit for it just for not
wanting to do PR or to do the encounter.
(07:34):
Yeah. So exhibition is very exciting
and it might be a once in. I think I'll probably do one in
Dubbo in a few years. The cultural, there's a huge,
big, beautiful cultural centre in Dubbo.
And I think I've spoken to the owner, the manager of the
cultural centre, and we're aiming for 2027 to do a really
big exhibition out there. 1927 Yeah, it it.
I can't give too much away, but it coincides with a really
important date. Oh.
(07:56):
So maybe think about zoo history.
It's a historic date for the zooanyways.
Yeah, it's gonna be. It will coincide a lot.
That would be the perfect combination of zoo stuff and
photography. That's great.
But I was thinking today I said this is a big deal.
I mean, I'm treating it like it's the Met Gala, mate.
Like I've gone and bought AI, bought a Camilla designer dress.
Well, hello, I'm glad you said designer.
(08:18):
You'd be like, who's Camilla? Camilla, you can't buy people.
I never get dressed up like I don't wear dresses.
The last time I wore a dress probably at my own wedding many
moons ago. And yeah, so it's it's funny.
I said to Wayne, what's the dress code here?
And he goes, well, people, some people turn up like it's the Met
Gala, and other people turn up in thongs and shorts and.
Yeah, I get that. It could go either way.
(08:38):
But I was like, no, you know what?
This is a big deal for me, so I'm gonna go all out.
Who's the babe over there next to all the?
I love that you've turned up today in what did that be left
print? The cheetah?
That's leopard. Leopards, Yeah.
Now it's leopard, as you can seethe rosette in the middle.
So cheetahs just have single black dots with the leopards.
Have they call it a rosette? It's a little.
(09:00):
It's like a little rose. Yeah.
There you go. I just learned something.
Oh my God, I'm just looking at aphoto right now.
Wait, let's see if I learned anything from what you just
said. Because it's a big cat and it's
got the OK, it's the same as it's the same as your top.
It's a leopard. Is it black?
No. No, actually that is not a
(09:21):
leopard. This one here I spin it towards.
Her and this photo. This photo is gonna be on this
photo exhibition. Her name is Marcella and she's
from South America. What do you reckon she is?
Well, she's a South American leopard.
She's a she's. A car.
There's a very famous car named after.
Her. She's a Puma.
Oh wait, no, that's the shoes. Oh my word, actually been a
(09:42):
wildlife specialist on this phone, on this, on this phone at
this point. OK, she had a car and it's a
it's a Santa Fe. Is that the Ranger?
So that's the. Jaguar.
I never would have got that. That's the well they look
recently. So what's Yeah, you just told me
the top that you're wearing lipid has the rosette thing in a
(10:02):
toilet. Her coat, Look how big the
rosettes are. That's the biggest.
That's the first telltale sign to Jag.
So the rosette. So it's like the black outline,
but then the bit on the inside and but on the inside is the
rosette. Yeah.
And if you look at hers, hers are quite massive compared to
what's on my shirt right now. So this is more leopards are
smaller. Jaguars have a, they're really
solid. And she's got a really big, what
(10:23):
I would refer to as a bullhead, like a big, big head, short
tail. They are like a triple threat.
They can swim unbelievably. This swimmer, she's walking in
this photo, she's stepping into the water here to go swimming.
She actually caught a Cayman a couple of minutes after this
photo was taken. Cayman as a small crocodile,
South American crocodile, rocked.
She can climb, she can run, she can do everything.
(10:45):
She's incredible. And she was a very first Jaguar
they ever saw in the wild. So most people have these goals
in their life to, I don't know, pay the house off or, you know,
climb things and get trophies. My goal was to photograph all
the genus or the the big cats and a Jaguar, he's one of them.
And she was the last one that had to photograph.
Wow, what are the other ones? So you got Lyme?
(11:06):
Yeah, Leopard. And like I said, there's also,
you got subspecies, right? So you got lion, leopard, snow
leopard, tiger, Jaguar. There's 5.
The genus is Panthera. So that's the genus.
And I wanted to photograph the five of them.
Now I'm gonna start working on like, you know, the, I just saw
my first Sri Lankan leopard a couple of weeks ago.
There's Persian leopard, there'sAfrican leopard, there's, you
(11:26):
know, Indian leopard, Jaguar. It's just the 1 Jaguar, I think.
Yeah, there might be slightly different variations in parts of
South America. What's your favorite 10?
It's a good question. It's hard.
Everybody loves the leopards because they do.
Take your breath where they are beautiful.
I think I'm a lion girl. Yeah, they're just dogs.
I'm a dog person. Yeah, I love cats.
(11:47):
I love all animals and people gohome a dog or a cat person.
But I really love dogs. I love cats too, but lions are
the most so they're the only social big cat.
And when you get around lions and you watch them play and
interact with each other, it's so dog like, even though they
they're cats. Yeah, they're my favorite cats.
My favorite cats are the ones that like my son will come home
and he'll ah, where's around such and such as that.
(12:09):
They've got a really cool cat. Like he'll come up to you and
like you call him, he comes overand always.
It's a cat that's a dog. Cat, dog I.
Think it's a lion? Yeah, they have.
Yeah, it's a cat dog. I like lions.
They're just clumsy. And I don't know if I like
lions, but I like all the cats. But the Jag was the last big
cat. So I ran a safari to the
Pantanal in Brazil and the goal was to I would have just been
happy just to get a glimpse of one.
(12:30):
But the first afternoon, Tito, our guy where the safari style
is, you're on a boat cruising upand down the Pantanal and
looking for them on them they're.
Really. It's really different.
It's really cool for low angles and there's so many amazing
species and not just Jaguar, butyou.
Don't get off the boat and go and there's no vehicles and no.
You stay on the boat. You do have to get the boat to
go the toilet and have like you stop and have a lunch break.
(12:50):
But normally it's in sort of what they deem safe spots, but
they always get out and check. But otherwise, are you seeing
lots from the 'cause you're onlyseeing what comes down to the
water? Yeah, and it's quite dense.
So we've seen this particular Jaguar.
We saw her a couple times. She's so pretty.
She's quite young. We got on the boat in the
afternoon and Tito, our guide, looked across at me and he just
gave me this little eye connection.
(13:10):
And then he did the little signal of like something was
walking and I was just going. And he just whispered Jack.
And then my heart just started racing.
Like, I was like, Oh my God. He'd.
Seen it. He'd they're heard on the radio,
so they're speaking Portuguese and he's heard it on the radio
that there's a Jag up ahead. And he just gave me the signal
to say don't say anything yet because what we do is we've
guests, we won't tell them untilwe're sure it's still there
(13:32):
because sometimes you build up excitement and you get there and
it's not there, especially thesetype of cats.
But a couple minutes before he said I could tell them because
it was still there. So I said, guys, we're about to
see our first Jaguar and I was like so excited.
And then there she was and she was magnificent.
And then the lights quite harsh because these cats are mostly
active in the middle of the day because that's when hunting came
in. But we were there in the
afternoon and she just was moving along the edge of the
(13:54):
river would be able to follow her.
And then she come down this embankment and she just was
about to step into the water andthe light, as you can see in the
photo, is this beautiful golden light hitting her.
And I was like, boom. And I was like, that's the shot.
And then she got into the water and she swam like just watching
her going against the current. She just swam up the side of the
river and she went into the ReedAnd then, boom, she got a
Cayman. But we couldn't quite, I
(14:16):
couldn't quite get the shot because it was a lot of like
tall reeds and a lot of rolling and thrashing.
And we saw her sort of come out up the embankment with it.
Yeah, crocodile in her mouth. Far House.
Yeah, they're really special, those cats.
Next one that is in your photographic exhibition.
I've got them on my iPad screen here and I'm just sort of
flicking through them and I haven't looked at these yet.
Bobby Jay just sent them throughto my iPad.
(14:37):
There's this. It's okay, It's it's an antelope
with a big orange stripy jumper on.
It's a good description. Do you remember what I what it
was? Ohh no.
Boom boom boom boom. It's.
The Bongo. Yes.
Is that a bongo? Yeah, this is.
Hilarious. Are they always that colour or
did someone like? They're beautiful and they when
(14:58):
the water, when it's raining, their coat runs red.
So it's like, I sort of describeit like when fake tan comes off,
when you've got a fake tan on and it comes on, but you know,
having a fake tan on it. We've got a.
Fake. I got a fake tan 1 and I went
and did this like 10K run thing as part of a promotional thing
or whatever. And they were gonna be taking
photos for the newspaper and they were there at the finish
line and I had sweated and so they came take the photos and it
(15:23):
all like it was running down my face.
The spray tan, yeah. Wow.
OK, so yeah, I do know what. You're glad I asked you that,
actually. I don't do it anymore and.
OK, when the bongo, and I know this because I've been caring
for bongo for a big chunk of my zookeeping career.
And when that rains and if you put your hand onto their coat or
you'll see it dripping off, it runs red.
(15:43):
Like it's like the dye is running off, like it's coloured
and it's running amazing. So they are that red and which?
Is really bad for like, like in this photo, Barry the bongo is
he's back through the trees and he's looking through.
He's actually got his head slightly to the side, like
looking through the trees going,oh God, there's someone there.
And I don't know if he knows just how bright he is against
(16:04):
the trees. That is the world's worst.
Camouflage, but it's not like when you're in there and I just
got lucky for that little tiny gap in the forest.
So when people come to the exhibition, they see this photo.
I did share this photo on my social was a couple months ago.
It was a big deal for me. You will know it's not a strong
composition. It's not a photo you'll go wow,
that's like amazing composition.It's the story behind it that's
so special. S That probably is one of my
(16:25):
most challenging and I reckon that's probably up there with
one of my most big. There's highlights in
photography. It was taking this photo of this
bongo. So they are, they're like red
ghosts in the forest. Like you just don't see them.
They're critically endangered. There's about 60 of them left in
the Aberdare's National Park in Kenya.
It's like a really high sort of altitude forest.
They just recently brought in a whole heap from I think the
(16:46):
states into Kenya from zoos and they're going to do like a bit
of a soft release and they're trying to repopulate bongo.
But I went to the Aberdare's andspent, I thought I spent four
nights, three nights, four days there.
And I contacted the founder of the Bongo Surveillance Project,
a guy called Mike Prettyjohn. He's 96, I believe, and he's
dedicated his entire life to helping save bongo and other
(17:08):
species. And he come and met me and I
couldn't believe that this was agentleman that I was, you know,
communicating with and the passion and the energy and his.
Yes. Well over message over emails
and say WhatsApp and you didn't realise he was 90.
Two, and he's the most amazing man.
And I just was a bit, you know, just like never budget book
bytes cover, right? When I saw him, I was like, wow,
like he's amazing. I'm here to meet your son, Yeah.
(17:29):
Or grandson. Can't really go hiking in the
forest now he can't. So he set me up.
He was so incredibly generous and he's holding my watch with
Bongo and I would love my chanceto see Bongo.
And I know from I've got people that I'm friends of that used to
be into hunting like big like hunting animals in Africa.
And they've always said that even with the hunting that Bongo
was like, you just don't find them.
And I've had people photographers and researchers
(17:51):
say it's just really hard to seethem in the forest.
And your best bet is to go to hide and watch the salt lick.
Hard to see them, as in there's not many of them.
Well, there's less than 100 and they're just so hard to see.
So I went there a little bit naive and gave myself three
nights to sit in a hide above a salt lick.
And a salt lick is basically an open area where it looks like
(18:12):
clay, but it's essentially there's dirt and minerals and
salt. They look like they're licking
the dirt, but it's a salt lick. A lot of animals use them, and
Bongo use them a lot. I got set up.
I got given my own Ranger. They had a rifle and another
guy. I found the Brongo Project team
and my own guide Benson, who came with me, and we sat in this
little rundown piece of crap hide.
If it rained, luckily it didn't rain on me, but there's no
(18:34):
cover. There was no nothing to it was
standing, no chairs. It was like this tiny little
square wooden box. We stood on that thing for
hours. Like my legs were aching and I
had my laptop and was showing them things we collect because
people see bongos on camera traps.
So I was excited enough to go into the forest and we collected
the SD cards out of the traps and we were watching that and
seeing they're coming there every night.
(18:55):
But by the time it got to 9:00, it's pitch black dark.
I'm like, how can we get a photoof this?
We can't put any lights on theseanimals and not even a red
light. And he even had one of those
little, is it a thermal scope? He put it up and that's what
we're gonna see the bongo with. But when I looked through the
thermal scope, it wasn't workingproperly.
He couldn't even see anything. And got to about 10.
And I've been there all day really.
And I was like, this is not gonna happen.
And I'm feeling really uncomfortable and I'm cold and
(19:18):
I'm really cold 'cause it's a cloud forest basically.
So we said, alright, let's give it another go tomorrow.
And we went back and then we went out during the day, hiking
in the forest, checking with thecamera traps.
We'd missed a bongo by 45 minutes.
So we got to this camera trap and checked the card and we'd
just missed it and she'd been out all night at the Salt Lake.
I was like, oh, So we went againto the hide another 8 hours,
(19:38):
nothing. And then this Ranger said to me,
if you're willing was our last morning was the 1st of November.
I was flying out that night backto Australia and we weren't
supposed to do anything. We're supposed to just get on
the road and get back to the airport.
So if you get up like at 5:00 AM, it's still dark.
I mean, I'll take you to a Salt Lake, but we have to walk in,
and it's dangerous. And I was just like, OK, how
dangerous? He goes, well, it's pitch black,
(19:59):
dark. We're gonna have to not make any
noise at all. You're gonna have to, like, walk
so carefully so you don't tread on, like, leaves and sticks and
no talking, no lights. There's Buffalo, leopard,
elephant, hyena. Forest hogs, all these critters
that we could potentially stand blind.
I was shitting myself. So we got there and we went in
and yeah, we were walking along.I just remember thinking, this
(20:20):
is how I die. This is how this is it.
Like I'm I. Well, it was.
You'd be OK with that? Yeah, it was a good.
Story so was that my funeral going yeah and you know she.
She died doing what she loves. Taken out by a Imagine if I got
taken out by a forest hog. That wouldn't have been cool.
I would have definitely liked tobe a elephant or a Buffalo.
If you get taken out by a foresthog like your last word should
be, don't tell them it was a forest hog.
(20:41):
Oh, they're pretty mildly looking.
Make it a cooler stuff. Yeah, it would be most likely,
to be honest with you. It would be a Buffalo that would
do it, for sure. That was my biggest concern was
running into a Buffalo. And because that exact salt lick
we're walking into, I've watchedlike the night before,
elephants, Buffalo, hyena, leopard, all these animals
coming into the salt lick and you.
Know that there and they go through there.
And I'm not a quiet person and it was so hard not to make any
(21:05):
noise. And like naturally humans were
so noisy and that the range isn't so quiet.
And I'm wearing little Kathmanduhiking pants, and they're
squishing and making noises. You know, you're just so
conscious of where you're putting your feet because if the
bongo here one movement, they'regone.
Yeah. And we're getting closer and
closer. And I knew where we were roughly
because we'd hiked there the afternoon before.
And we got down there, and they were probably about maybe 100
(21:26):
meters off the salt lick. And I just saw the guard in
front of me because I was starting to just make out shapes
because the light was coming in.It was probably about, you know,
a quarter six. And the guy just froze.
I just felt his energy. And he just went bongo.
And I tell you what, I'm just like, yeah, like if I could
swear right now, I would. And I got up close and I just
saw it was a herd of bongo, two young ones.
And they were just coming off toSalt Lake into the forest.
(21:49):
And all you could see was just the red as it was sort of going.
And they look like ghosts going to the forest.
And my new camera, thankfully, is now mirrorless, which means I
can shoot. It doesn't make any noise.
It's just like it's the mirror is not, you know, moving up and
down. It's an electronic shutter.
So I just was firing at nothing.Like, I just felt like it was
so, so dark. It was my ISO.
It was like 8000 ISO or something.
(22:10):
I don't know if that means much to you, but it was very high.
Like it was like shooting in thedark.
To be yeah, To be capturing as much light as.
Possible, yeah. And then I just got so lucky
that one female, she just stopped and she stared straight
at us and I got the shot all at the time I didn't I just was
shooting like crazy. I felt like she was staring at
us for 5 minutes. I'm sure it was like 20 seconds.
Well, not even probably less 10 seconds.
And then she moved off and then they got a whip of us and they
(22:32):
just bolted. He just heard them like this
crashing through the forest. That was it.
And I burst into tears and even the rain just got a little bit,
I think a little bit worked up. They, we were really pumped
about it. And yeah.
And it was the coolest thing was, is my late best friend
Cheryl, It was her birthday. I didn't realise.
And when we're driving there, I said to my guide, what's the
date today? He said, Bobby Joe, it's the
first. Like, you're flying out tonight.
I was like, Oh my God, it's Cheryl's birthday.
(22:53):
And I said to Benson, we're gonna see a bongo this morning.
Like, she's gonna because she's a redhead, we're gonna see a
bongo this morning. And then she was there was
Cheryl at the heart at the Salt Lake staring at me.
Cheryl, good night. She's a yeah.
So that's the story behind that one.
Do you write in that? Like now that you say all that,
looking at the photo, you're right.
Composition wires or whatever, There's other photos that you
have that are like, well, yeah, the the gorilla one.
(23:15):
Yeah, him sitting in the trees, you know, the colour of all the
trees around everything. This one's quite dark.
Hmm. On both sides of it.
And then just straight through the middle, the light is hitting
this bongo. Where the salt lick is, which is
open, right? So we were in the forest and the
salt lick's kind of in the open.So that's why there's a light on
her. Yeah, yeah.
But then when you know the story, yeah.
Oh, it's so. Cool, that's a limited edition,
(23:36):
that one 'cause it's just so like, and it gave me like my
work colleagues. It takes a lot to impress my
work colleagues. Trust me, I've tried, but they
work with amazing animals every day.
So it takes a lot like one of mycolleagues, Roger, who worked
with a lot, he's been in the industry for like 30 years.
And when I go back to work, he goes, I'm shouting you a coffee
today and I go away you guys because you saw a wild bongo and
I Yeah, man, thanks dude. Like, you know, so yeah, that
(23:58):
got me a favorite of kudos and then I going back and working
with the bongo. I was just with them a couple of
days ago. Like it's just opened up a whole
new appreciation for them and their environment and.
For people that are trying to picture what it looks like.
Beautiful rusty red with white stripes running down the back,
slightly curled horns. Kind of like what animal would
you compare it to? Probably an an animal that
probably people don't know is like a kudu or yeah, I think
(24:19):
yeah, a Niala, yeah, yeah, an African antelope.
So I don't know how to do. So it's right with Antelope.
It's, oh, it is an antelope, Yeah.
Wow, I did not know that I was even getting close on that.
When I sent the photo to Mike, Pretty John, our 96 year old, my
new 96 year old friend, he was blown away with it.
He even actually turned into a Christmas card to send out to
all the sponsors and he said he wrote this little message to me.
I have to find him. I watch Sappers said no one
(24:40):
really has been as ballsy to walk in on a on a salt leak like
that. Like you're one of a handful of
people that ever photo of a bongo on foot.
Another say wow, wow. So, and we raised with this
photo, got back to the zoo and we got a wonderful team of
volunteers that dedicates so much of their time, how zoo
would not run without our volunteers.
And they're very passionate about raising money for
conservation causes. And they said, can you please do
(25:01):
a presentation about your bongo experience?
And we got together at the pub, 70 people turned up so many
volunteers and their partners and family.
And we raised about $1000 just from putting a hat around.
And I doubled it. We sent it to Mike.
He built a new hide. He knew he needed to build a new
because I said what can I help you with to say thank you for
letting me come and have this experience?
(25:21):
He said well we need to fix the hire and I said yes you do.
Yeah, you do. I know you do.
I threw some money at that and they've already fixed it.
So it's it's strategic as well. Hey, now I can go back and be a
little bit more comfortable. Well done.
Oh good God. Alright, let me describe this
next photo. So here's what I can picture has
happened. 2 giraffe were runningalong, one very closely behind
(25:42):
the other one. The front one stopped in a
hurry. Wow.
And the second one, straight up no.
This is a giraffe giving birth. Yes, yeah.
Another really rare look. This one is a risky 1 because I
don't know if people want to have a photo of a giraffe giving
birth in their wall, but it's not too confronting.
I don't. It's for me.
If no one buys this shot, I don't care.
(26:03):
It's gonna be on my wall. You know what's amazing about
the photo I've just seen? Mum is turning her neck all the
way back around the back and moving her tail out of the way.
Yep. So with her mouth.
Yeah. And she's showing when she does
that, she's giving us full display of those legs sticking
out. It's not too gory, this photo.
I actually met a lady when I took this photo in Kenya and the
(26:23):
Mara N Conservancy. I showed this photo to a woman
that come to the camp a few dayslater and she said this is what
we've been seeing this week. And she was what's What are
people called when they deliver babies?
Midwife. No, she's higher up than that.
Oncology. No, that's not what is it called
obstetrician. Obstetrician OBGYN.
She's a. Huge, big OBGYN in New York.
(26:45):
She's very high up and really good at her job and I really
connected with her. She's from New York and I
actually gave her a copy of thisphoto and she's got it on her
wall in her office, so. Wow.
Appointments about having the baby and there's a big picture
of a giraffe there with baby's legs hanging out.
But to see a giraffe give birth in the wild is really rare and
it's quite rare to see even at the zoo.
And I in all my zoo career, I'venever actually watched up this
(27:08):
bad timing. I've got there like minutes
after it's happened where the baby's still trying to.
Get to you need to be doing is setting up a hide.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just funny.
Like that's not never, never. I've never seen a birth that did
work, but then I've seen one in the wild now and it was just
amazing. And we watched the whole thing
from start to finish and it's incredible.
When that baby giraffe is born, how does straight up on their
feet, right on their wobbly legs?
(27:29):
Everyone says that, but no, it'ssat down for quite a while
within the first maybe 15 minutes or so.
Yes, it does attempt to get up, but.
I mean, that's still pretty impressive.
Falls over. I think the wildebeest get up
quicker, to be honest. The giraffe, yeah, they fall
over and it's it's quite awkwardto watch, but but it's funny as
well. Look at.
That big gangly legs. Find yourself funny, like we
were talking before on your podcast about how people have a
(27:51):
fascination of watching animals mate.
Another funny thing is US laughing at babies that have
just been born. Like, you know, if a baby come
flailing out of a person, it waslike on the floor flopping
about, we wouldn't be going ha ha ha.
Ha, you cannot control his legs.But when we see an animal, it's
like, oh, how cute. Ha ha, hilarious.
Oh look how clumsy. Good boy.
So yeah, it is cute and I had a guest with me that were from
(28:13):
Washington, American couple thatwere on their honeymoon and
their first time to Africa, first or second game drive.
I think it was all they wanted to see is the best type of
guests that we get. They just said we want to see
giraffe. I would really love to see
giraffe in the wild. I was like, yes, OK.
There's heaps of those and I know where they.
Are and then so their first giraffe sighting was watching a
giraffe give birth. Can you believe it?
(28:34):
I was just like saying you have no idea how lucky this is.
And they were just such lovely people.
I'm still in contact with them. But yeah.
So it's not a two people will love the photo, but it's, it's a
bit, Yeah. I mean, if no one buys that one,
that was a risky one that I put in there.
That's a little bit. I wouldn't say it's, it's
confronting. It's no, it's quite nice.
No, Yeah. Yeah.
And she's actually pulling her tail back.
I think she's just grooming her tail because she had like, I
(28:57):
guess parts of the amniotic sackcoming out or there's something
going on there. And but she's also she's she did
hold it for a while. So she's probably just looking
at what's happening. Yeah.
This next photo that I've got onmy screen here just made me go
whoa by looking at it. That's scary.
Is it the darkness, the cat coming out of the darkness?
(29:19):
So that's Giza Marembo, which means beautiful darkness in
Swahili. That is a leopard, an African
leopard. But she's melanistic, so she
has, no, she's completely black and she's quite famous.
And I have some wonderful gueststhat wanted to go see her.
And I was a little bit indifferent to her because we
humans, we do this thing, we geta fascination for anything
that's really different. So anything is like albino or
(29:40):
which is white, anything that's anything, it's just odd and not,
you know, it's actually a genetic mutation.
She's not supposed to be that. Way.
What are the black ones? Leopards.
No Panthers. Well, no.
Oh. What?
No. So you hear people say Black
Panther. There's a whole movie franchise
about it. A Black Panther is just a
leopard that's melanistic. It's a black leopard, really.
(30:01):
Yeah, it's a Panther a thing. Not really, no.
So they call it the Florida Panther.
You hear that? That's basically a cougar or
Puma. So no.
So India, like the famous, what's his name?
Bagheera in the in the jungle. MMM.
He's actually a black leopard. Yeah.
Melanistic. So they just don't.
But if you look closely at that photo, you'll see she remember
the rosettes were just talking about before.
Yeah, she's still got them. Oh, she does.
(30:22):
And when you put the torch on her and the Schwenger came into
the light, you'll see a certain angle.
You'll see the rosettes very clearly.
Wow. And I was so indifferent to her
because I'd seen her getting around on social media.
People were like photographing geezer, geezer this, geezer
that. And I was like, OK, like Geezer
is, it's just a leopard and she's black.
Cool. I'm not going to go all the way
(30:43):
up there with guests and advertise as a black leopard
safari because you're setting yourself up for failure, like if
she doesn't turn up. And as it was, we had six, like
these particular guests, it was a private safari.
They're British. They're wonderful people to
travel with. And they wanted to go to Kenya
anyways. And they said, let's go take a
chance to go see Geezer. And I was like, OK, cool.
That's hilarious. Did you say they're British?
(31:03):
Yeah, And they. Just the geezers are gonna see
geezers they. Just wanted to go and see a
geezer. Well the the the big cat went
away that day as well going you wouldn't believe what I saw.
I saw a bunch of geezers. Oh mate, I had bloody plenty
sightings of geezer geezer coming at me ears.
No, but these the geezers we actually called ourselves in the
WhatsApp group, they called themselves the geezers.
Geezers, Geezers. Geezers.
(31:24):
Yeah. Oh, they're funny.
They're most funniest people. Especially Nigel.
He's hilarious. He's one of the best birders in
the world. Like he's seen over half the
world species of birds. Wow, 10,000 birds give or take
on the planet. He's seen like 6000 I think.
Amazing. Yeah, I think I've got that
right. He's in some special club like
the, I don't know, the 6000 club, I know it's called.
Anyways, we saw Geezer, but we had six chances to see her and
(31:47):
we got to, we had lots of great normal leopard sightings, which
were wonderful. But everyone's like, that was in
the Black Keep. We gotta see the black leopard.
The last sighting, the last hourof the 6th drive.
So the last drive we hadn't seenher.
And I was like, wow, OK, well, this is exactly my point.
Like she's not that easy to see.And we were just about to give
up and go and have ours downer in the Bush, like have a beer or
(32:08):
gin and tonic. We're driving along and all of a
sudden we got a spotter on top and he's like, Geezer, She came
out of the darkness and I couldn't even see her.
She's that black. She'd come out of the darkness
and the first thing I saw when she turned to me was those
yellow eyes. And I actually was.
Like. Holy shit, like a whole wow.
Like I was a fan. Like in a split second I was
(32:28):
like, she's worth every bit of money we've spent here and every
bit of time, and she was just magnificent.
She's the scariest looking one out of all of your photos that
I've seen. She's not scary cat, she's the
most confident leopard I've everseen in my life.
And she caught a scrub hair. It's like, yeah, yeah, like a
hair. And she caught that in front of
us. Like she was running around the
Bush and she grabbed it, and then she walked out of the Bush.
(32:49):
My favorite photo of her is not one that would go on your wall.
She's actually sitting there staring straight at me with her
big yellow eyes, with her hair hanging out of her mouth.
And you can see the breadth of the hair like because.
It's Oh no. And that's like, that's a shot
that I would put on my wall, butas I had to put my marketing
brain on and go, no, no, that's not going to sell, but that's
the shot for me. I'll probably post that.
I think I have posted that. But she just did a few times.
(33:11):
She would walk directly towards us.
And I kept saying to the guide, I was so excited.
Like I was grabbing my guests and like, you know, like it was
next level. The geezers were like just
jumping out of their skin. They're like, what, you know.
And then now we had dinner in the Bush afterwards.
We were just buzzing so much about this sighting and yeah,
she was. She's just incredible.
She's just had a cub and it would turned out to be a normal
cub. Everyone, I think everyone was
(33:33):
hoping people were advertising come and see the black leopard
cub. It's about to get like she's
about to give birth. I'm like, but you don't go into
the Bush and find leopards. They find you.
You can't search for a leopard. You can just drive around and
hope you see one. When they want to be seen, they
show themselves. I just said, I guess you don't.
Yeah, you can go searching for aline and a cheater.
They're pretty predictable with their movements.
Leopard. No way.
(33:53):
So people are actually advertising for like, come and
see a geezer's leopard. Oh, sorry, Geezer's cub.
And she's pumped out a normal cub and was like, oh, you know,
but it doesn't cool seeing a normal spotted, like, coloured
cub next to her. Yeah, but.
And I said to my guide, why are her eyes so yellow?
And he just smiled at me. He's a wonderful Maasai guide.
(34:13):
And like he Pierre. And he said to me, they're
normal. It's just because of the
contrast, because she's so dark.And I was like, oh, so yeah.
Oh wow. Hmm, so it'd actually be the
same colour eyes that would be on a well.
The leopard eyes, they have different colouration.
The Sri Lankan leopards had a really beautiful bluish green,
grey look about them and a lot of leopards have really yellow
eyes, but she's got normal coloured eyes.
(34:33):
It's just 'cause she's so dark. So cool.
No, she's love these photos. Yeah, So she's gonna be on
display and available here to purchase.
Yeah. Do you have any photos you're
pretty confident that'll go? Well, I'll let you in a secret.
I sold one this morning, so I'vehad people contact me already.
They're excited about the exhibition, and they might
necessarily not wanna go to it for a whole different reasons,
(34:54):
like it's, you know, they're notsocial or they can't get there
and it's Northern. Beaches, there's people all
around, different. Places.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I've had a someone purchase achimp portrait that's gonna be
included. It's still available for
purchase and the exhibition, youjust have to order another one.
But he's already taken the firstone, so people can contact me if
they wanna get in a little bit earlier.
Mm Hmm. But yeah, I have a feeling.
(35:15):
I think I'll know. It's funny.
I think I know what's gonna sell, but you just don't know.
There's some shops. You know you should do write
them down. Yeah, the ones I think.
Yeah, write. Down your predictions for now
and then in a couple of weeks when it's all over and they go
back and have a look at it and and see.
And I've put, I've tried to put in a variety of species.
Yeah, cats are heavy because everyone loves the cats.
Elephants, giraffe, there's somespecies in that people are going
(35:36):
to go the shoe, the shoe bill. Maybe I might be selling the
shoe bill shot to you. There's a shoe bill in flight.
I love the shoe bill. So funny shots and then that
people that people go, oh, OK, there's one particular shot
which I haven't released it before.
It's taken an injury of a tiger.Have you got that shot there in
the water? What do you think of that shot?
Blashing out of the water, goinginto the water, coming out of
the water. So that's ready.
(35:57):
And she is a young female tigress and she so tigress is
females and tiger male and I've photographed her as a cub when
she was small. And her mother is Arrowhead and
Arrowhead is the granddaughter of the one of the most famous
tigers in India called Muchley areally cool documentary on her.
It's called the Lady of the Lakes.
So she has this like this particular tiger.
(36:19):
They that's what I love about the Indians.
They they love their tigers and they, it's the tigers have
become like a the royal family like it's.
The old lineage. And Marchley is like, she was
the queen and then she has her lineage and that really comes
from royalty. And she's now Lady of the Lakes.
So that's the title of the shot,I think ready, Lady of the
Lakes. She's that's this main zone in,
in Rantambour National Park in India.
(36:40):
And she's ruling it at the moment.
She's got some Cubs. And I was telling my guests all
about her and we hadn't seen heryet.
And one afternoon there were so many people on this game drive
and it was like loads of people everywhere.
And they all got a whiff that there was a tiger that really
had come out. So they all took off to the
other side of the lake and we could see her coming.
And our guide said, let's just hang here.
If you're OK, I'll say yes, let's stay here.
I don't want to go with all the crowd.
(37:01):
Oh man, we got lucky. So she started walking towards
us from the other side of the lake.
And then she picked up the speedand I said to my guests, and
there was Samba, which are samba, a really big deer.
We actually have them feral herein Australia, I think.
Huge, big, sort of dark, not a very nice looking deer, but
they're in. They like to go into the water
and tigers will hunt in the water.
I said to my guests really mightcharge through this water in a
second after these samba deer. So, you know, put your shutter
(37:24):
speeds like, you know, 2000 and higher, set yourselves up.
And as I said that, she picked up the pace and she come
charging towards us. She's just hit that water so
hard and fast and she missed thesamba.
And one of my guests was very grateful for that.
He's like, oh, no, I don't want to see kill.
And I was just like, I don't. She was, yeah, she'd come out of
nowhere in such an open space. They stay clocked.
(37:44):
Just straight away she didn't stand a chance.
But when she came through that water, just seeing, when I saw
the shot afterwards, I was like,I just knew I had something.
And I showed everybody in the truck and you know what their
first response was? That's gotta go into the
exhibition 'cause I was coming home to do the exhibition and my
Indian guy said that shot is in the exhibition, don't share it.
The big spot. The muscles like she is rich.
(38:06):
Yeah. And that shot's one of the big
one. It's gonna be huge at the right.
Yeah. I have a feeling that will sell
my prediction. Probably.
I will probably buy my own shot.No, really, it's, it's a
cracker. That's great.
But yeah, well. Thank you for showing those to
me. That's.
Cool. I don't.
Yeah. I don't have to go to the
exhibition now. Oh, come on, I.
Don't like going? Look at the yeah.
You're gonna look at the virtualexhibition Your Anti Social.
(38:28):
And do it from my couch. Yeah, no, it's I'm really
excited about it. And please guys, if you're
listening, you wanna come on to the opening night, I will be in
residence. So I'll be there, met Gullah and
all, not. Only in residence in Camilla.
In Camilla. Yeah, come and say hello.
I'd probably be there. That would be the only time I'll
probably be there because I haveto go back to the zoo.
I have to go back to work. But it's open for two weeks, so
(38:51):
come on down. If you can't make it.
I'll put the link up for the virtual exhibition.
You can have a look. All the stories are there.
And yeah. As you're listening to this, I
will put the link to it in the show notes here as well, so in
the description of the episode, so you can go straight to it
from there. It's so nice to catch up with
you. Yeah, it's been great catching
up with you. Really cool because Rabs live.
Rabs lives 300 metres from my sister.
Yeah, so that's another weird coincidence.
(39:13):
I know. Oh, you had one.
Even weirder. I got totally freaked out the
other day. I was recording with a lady from
my podcast and at the end we're just standing around chatting
and I just turned off the cameras from filming in the pod
van. And when she said what she said,
I was like, Oh no, I didn't capture that because it was
(39:34):
amazing. But then I realised it wasn't.
And he was like, OK, for a moment I was like, this is
crazy. She's, you should talk to my
sister. She's got amazing stories.
I was like, Oh yeah, what is shedoing?
She goes, she spends like 6-7 months a year overseas on safari
and she's from the coast and I've just gone.
You're Bobby Jo's sister. And she went what?
(39:56):
I was like, Bobby Jo, is that your sister?
And she has, you know, and she'stelling me her sister's name's
Lauren or something. I was like, oh, OK.
Oh, wait, what? Because I know Bobby Jay's
sister is here on the coast. Yeah.
Who? Else here has a story of their
sister spends all those months over years on surprise.
So there's another one. Is there?
Yeah, she goes over and does, because then I was like, wait,
(40:16):
you, you can't be doing the samething.
Maybe you go by another name or something, She said.
No, she does goes over and does volunteering and work with all
these different charities and things over there.
So. Yeah, yeah, My sister's too shy
to talk on your podcast with my sister, but I want to get her
own one. I was.
Like, how have I just finished talking to you and we never
clicked that you're Bobby Jay's sister?
Because she's not. Well, thank you for joining us
(40:38):
guys, and I look forward to seeing her at the exhibition and
there's a whole lot of podcasts coming up from my travels from
India and Sri Lanka and even my mum.
That's going to be an interesting one.
Tune in for that one if you wantsome gossip on me.
It's great to have you guys hereand I'll see you next time.
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
(41:01):
Facebook at Bobby Joe Safaris. And if you'd love to join one of
her photography tours or workshops, you can find all the
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.
Good day, honey Badgers. It's your chief honey badger,
Bobby Joe here, and I'm connecting with you from my old
(00:43):
stomping grounds, the Central Coast.
Been visiting my family, my sister, and I'm catching up with
AVIP. Great company here with Rabs.
Where it all began. Yeah, Rabs, I love you, man.
Like, seriously. We met at the zoo at the start
of the year and you have made one of my many dreams come true
with the podcast. It's going really well and it's
(01:05):
got great feedback. I'm really enjoying it and it's
all thanks to you. Thank you.
But it goes both ways. So massive thank you to you as
well because you were the first for as far as me.
So I've got my own podcast that I put out and it's 183 episodes.
Out now. This is my 6th 1, I think.
Lucky number six, yeah. But I've been doing them three a
(01:26):
week for nearly a year and a half.
And I had never even thought about, you know, editing,
producing, publishing other people's podcasts.
And it was only through the conversation with you that it
happened. And in the next couple of weeks,
I'll be up to six podcasts. Wow, that's amazing.
Well done. But you, yeah, you made all of
(01:48):
this happen. I bribed him with hippos.
Yeah, yeah, I love. Hippos.
I want him over with hippos. It always works.
And you know what? It's.
So I always take my dates to seethe hippos true story.
When you not joking when you're sending messages through from
when you're over in Africa or wherever you are overseas on
what's happened and it's the voice messages and stuff.
(02:11):
I have this big smile on my face.
Like I really enjoy it. I enjoy the editing and putting
out your episodes and everythingas well.
So yeah, you've opened that up for me to do that for other
people. Yeah, it's felt so natural, to
be honest. Like it's been a great
connection. Like as soon as I met you 2,
like just now just dropping a message.
Even if I'm talking random shit in Africa, I could send you a
message. And it's like you understand me
(02:32):
or. And I think we're quite similar
in the fact that I'll have something just come into my
brain and I'll just message you about it.
But then I get the same from youas well.
Oh yeah, yeah. So we do operate on the same
page. And yeah, I'm really stoked with
what we've achieved so far. And it's it's been wonderful.
And I've been loving interviewing people.
And you're very good at it. And you also, you have, I've
(02:53):
said it so many times and I've told you this as well.
You've got a really good voice, really, really easy to listen
to. And I've had other people say
that as well. Yeah, that's great, because you
did say I had a head for radio. I did.
Not say that. No, I just made that.
Bobby Joe said I could do video episodes on just stick to audio
I reckon. Yeah, but we're sitting here in
the van, back in the van where it all started, jumping into
(03:15):
vans with men. That's.
Yeah, back here in the little van.
And we just did a podcast for your.
Yeah, for your. Yeah.
And in that we started running through some of the photos that
you've got for your photographicexhibition that's coming up.
Or is it already out by the timethis is?
Nope. So it's coming up next Saturday,
May 17th. I have my very first solo
photographic exhibition, so thishas been a long time coming.
(03:38):
I've been nervous about having an exhibition.
I guess like most artists, you love your work, but then you get
a bit nervous putting it out there.
And people are quite surprised about that.
When I say, oh, I'm nervous about showing my photos, I am
because it's, you know, it's your work.
You're putting a price tag on it.
So it's the reality of that is that you want your photos to
sell, but you start doubting almost, you know, putting too
(03:58):
much money on them. And then you start talking about
the stories behind the photos and what it takes to get the
shots. And you go, Oh no, this thing's
worth $1,000,000. Yeah, I get it as well.
What I don't get out of that is when like you're saying, like
nervous about people seeing the photos, you know, you can look
at them and go, that's an incredible photo.
Yeah, yesterday I went to the gallery to finish signing them.
(04:19):
So all the prints framed and they've got a beautiful mount
and the frames have been chosen to match each photo and I've
signed them. Even signing the signature was a
big deal for me because I've gotsuch a tiny little puny
signature and I was paranoid about, oh, it looks terrible.
But I was signing the prints andthe gallery owner and the framer
whose gallery and his wife, Donna, she was having a giggle
(04:41):
every time I would pull the photo back and the next time
would be revealed. I was like, Oh my God, it's
beautiful. And I was actually.
Take your own photo. Yes, yeah.
And I was like, I'm so up myselfright now, but I actually really
loved every single shot. And it took me back to that
moment and I said, you know what, if nobody buys my prints,
if they don't do well, I'm putting them in my house because
these are amazing. So actually it was a reality
(05:04):
yesterday. It was big reality check and I
was super happy when I drove away going wow, I actually can
take a photo. That's awesome.
I'm gonna struggle not to go into question asking mode 'cause
it's what I do. Yeah.
This is your podcast. Interviewing each other.
Yeah, yeah. So just a bit of behind the
scenes of that. So do you have to pay for them
to be all done up and into prints and and the frames and
(05:26):
all that sort of thing? And then if they don't sell, you
just have to wear that cost. This is one of the reasons why I
have balked at having a exhibition in Dubbo.
I once decked out a nice cafe with all my artwork and that was
expensive. That was about $2000 back.
That was many years ago and I sold, I got my money back.
I sold most of them. Some of them went missing off
(05:47):
walls and it was just messy and I just left me.
It was a kind of a negative experience and I thought, oh,
and then someone said you shouldreally do a my friend Karen,
who's coming all the way from Perth to come to the exhibition,
love her. She's the best.
And she'll be listening to this podcast.
Hello Karen. And she really put the pressure
on me now for the last couple ofyears.
She's one of my biggest fans. But she's what I love about
(06:10):
Karen is she doesn't sugarcoat anything.
She just tells me exactly how itis and said you need to pull
your finger out and do an exhibition like you've got this
body of work and people are not seeing it.
So she encouraged me to to get going and then it sort of
another sliding doors moment where I met Wayne, who's the
gallery owner, and they sort of come together and yeah, it's.
Just like when you said in my podcast, the most recent one, we
were talking about all of this and how we met.
(06:31):
It is those sliding doors moments.
But you gotta be open to them. Yes, they come along.
You know, you met a guy at the zoo that had a mobile podcasting
studio. We got chatting.
I said get in the van. You were really open to that.
And then you had lollies. And after that, yeah, you just,
(06:52):
you were open did. You have a confession to make
those I wasn't, I was on Hippos,was on Hippos that day.
One of my work colleagues, she was worried that you were gonna
interview her. And she said I don't really
wanna do the encounter. And she's smart and I and we're
both smart. She says to me, she heard me
talking about wanting to do a podcast for a long time.
And she goes, why don't you go and do my job for me?
(07:13):
And that way you can get some tips on starting a podcast.
So I, I wasn't actually supposedto be doing the encounter.
And I went, that's a great idea.And she was like, that is a
great idea because I don't have to do it now.
And so I went with the intentionof getting, you know, meeting
you and then just asking you a few questions, which did and it
led to this. Yeah.
So now Dee probably takes full credit for it just for not
wanting to do PR or to do the encounter.
(07:34):
Yeah. So exhibition is very exciting
and it might be a once in. I think I'll probably do one in
Dubbo in a few years. The cultural, there's a huge,
big, beautiful cultural centre in Dubbo.
And I think I've spoken to the owner, the manager of the
cultural centre, and we're aiming for 2027 to do a really
big exhibition out there. 1927 Yeah, it it.
I can't give too much away, but it coincides with a really
important date. Oh.
(07:56):
So maybe think about zoo history.
It's a historic date for the zooanyways.
Yeah, it's gonna be. It will coincide a lot.
That would be the perfect combination of zoo stuff and
photography. That's great.
But I was thinking today I said this is a big deal.
I mean, I'm treating it like it's the Met Gala, mate.
Like I've gone and bought AI, bought a Camilla designer dress.
Well, hello, I'm glad you said designer.
(08:18):
You'd be like, who's Camilla? Camilla, you can't buy people.
I never get dressed up like I don't wear dresses.
The last time I wore a dress probably at my own wedding many
moons ago. And yeah, so it's it's funny.
I said to Wayne, what's the dress code here?
And he goes, well, people, some people turn up like it's the Met
Gala, and other people turn up in thongs and shorts and.
Yeah, I get that. It could go either way.
(08:38):
But I was like, no, you know what?
This is a big deal for me, so I'm gonna go all out.
Who's the babe over there next to all the?
I love that you've turned up today in what did that be left
print? The cheetah?
That's leopard. Leopards, Yeah.
Now it's leopard, as you can seethe rosette in the middle.
So cheetahs just have single black dots with the leopards.
Have they call it a rosette? It's a little.
(09:00):
It's like a little rose. Yeah.
There you go. I just learned something.
Oh my God, I'm just looking at aphoto right now.
Wait, let's see if I learned anything from what you just
said. Because it's a big cat and it's
got the OK, it's the same as it's the same as your top.
It's a leopard. Is it black?
No. No, actually that is not a
(09:21):
leopard. This one here I spin it towards.
Her and this photo. This photo is gonna be on this
photo exhibition. Her name is Marcella and she's
from South America. What do you reckon she is?
Well, she's a South American leopard.
She's a she's. A car.
There's a very famous car named after.
Her. She's a Puma.
Oh wait, no, that's the shoes. Oh my word, actually been a
(09:42):
wildlife specialist on this phone, on this, on this phone at
this point. OK, she had a car and it's a
it's a Santa Fe. Is that the Ranger?
So that's the. Jaguar.
I never would have got that. That's the well they look
recently. So what's Yeah, you just told me
the top that you're wearing lipid has the rosette thing in a
(10:02):
toilet. Her coat, Look how big the
rosettes are. That's the biggest.
That's the first telltale sign to Jag.
So the rosette. So it's like the black outline,
but then the bit on the inside and but on the inside is the
rosette. Yeah.
And if you look at hers, hers are quite massive compared to
what's on my shirt right now. So this is more leopards are
smaller. Jaguars have a, they're really
solid. And she's got a really big, what
(10:23):
I would refer to as a bullhead, like a big, big head, short
tail. They are like a triple threat.
They can swim unbelievably. This swimmer, she's walking in
this photo, she's stepping into the water here to go swimming.
She actually caught a Cayman a couple of minutes after this
photo was taken. Cayman as a small crocodile,
South American crocodile, rocked.
She can climb, she can run, she can do everything.
(10:45):
She's incredible. And she was a very first Jaguar
they ever saw in the wild. So most people have these goals
in their life to, I don't know, pay the house off or, you know,
climb things and get trophies. My goal was to photograph all
the genus or the the big cats and a Jaguar, he's one of them.
And she was the last one that had to photograph.
Wow, what are the other ones? So you got Lyme?
(11:06):
Yeah, Leopard. And like I said, there's also,
you got subspecies, right? So you got lion, leopard, snow
leopard, tiger, Jaguar. There's 5.
The genus is Panthera. So that's the genus.
And I wanted to photograph the five of them.
Now I'm gonna start working on like, you know, the, I just saw
my first Sri Lankan leopard a couple of weeks ago.
There's Persian leopard, there'sAfrican leopard, there's, you
(11:26):
know, Indian leopard, Jaguar. It's just the 1 Jaguar, I think.
Yeah, there might be slightly different variations in parts of
South America. What's your favorite 10?
It's a good question. It's hard.
Everybody loves the leopards because they do.
Take your breath where they are beautiful.
I think I'm a lion girl. Yeah, they're just dogs.
I'm a dog person. Yeah, I love cats.
(11:47):
I love all animals and people gohome a dog or a cat person.
But I really love dogs. I love cats too, but lions are
the most so they're the only social big cat.
And when you get around lions and you watch them play and
interact with each other, it's so dog like, even though they
they're cats. Yeah, they're my favorite cats.
My favorite cats are the ones that like my son will come home
and he'll ah, where's around such and such as that.
(12:09):
They've got a really cool cat. Like he'll come up to you and
like you call him, he comes overand always.
It's a cat that's a dog. Cat, dog I.
Think it's a lion? Yeah, they have.
Yeah, it's a cat dog. I like lions.
They're just clumsy. And I don't know if I like
lions, but I like all the cats. But the Jag was the last big
cat. So I ran a safari to the
Pantanal in Brazil and the goal was to I would have just been
happy just to get a glimpse of one.
(12:30):
But the first afternoon, Tito, our guy where the safari style
is, you're on a boat cruising upand down the Pantanal and
looking for them on them they're.
Really. It's really different.
It's really cool for low angles and there's so many amazing
species and not just Jaguar, butyou.
Don't get off the boat and go and there's no vehicles and no.
You stay on the boat. You do have to get the boat to
go the toilet and have like you stop and have a lunch break.
(12:50):
But normally it's in sort of what they deem safe spots, but
they always get out and check. But otherwise, are you seeing
lots from the 'cause you're onlyseeing what comes down to the
water? Yeah, and it's quite dense.
So we've seen this particular Jaguar.
We saw her a couple times. She's so pretty.
She's quite young. We got on the boat in the
afternoon and Tito, our guide, looked across at me and he just
gave me this little eye connection.
(13:10):
And then he did the little signal of like something was
walking and I was just going. And he just whispered Jack.
And then my heart just started racing.
Like, I was like, Oh my God. He'd.
Seen it. He'd they're heard on the radio,
so they're speaking Portuguese and he's heard it on the radio
that there's a Jag up ahead. And he just gave me the signal
to say don't say anything yet because what we do is we've
guests, we won't tell them untilwe're sure it's still there
(13:32):
because sometimes you build up excitement and you get there and
it's not there, especially thesetype of cats.
But a couple minutes before he said I could tell them because
it was still there. So I said, guys, we're about to
see our first Jaguar and I was like so excited.
And then there she was and she was magnificent.
And then the lights quite harsh because these cats are mostly
active in the middle of the day because that's when hunting came
in. But we were there in the
afternoon and she just was moving along the edge of the
(13:54):
river would be able to follow her.
And then she come down this embankment and she just was
about to step into the water andthe light, as you can see in the
photo, is this beautiful golden light hitting her.
And I was like, boom. And I was like, that's the shot.
And then she got into the water and she swam like just watching
her going against the current. She just swam up the side of the
river and she went into the ReedAnd then, boom, she got a
Cayman. But we couldn't quite, I
(14:16):
couldn't quite get the shot because it was a lot of like
tall reeds and a lot of rolling and thrashing.
And we saw her sort of come out up the embankment with it.
Yeah, crocodile in her mouth. Far House.
Yeah, they're really special, those cats.
Next one that is in your photographic exhibition.
I've got them on my iPad screen here and I'm just sort of
flicking through them and I haven't looked at these yet.
Bobby Jay just sent them throughto my iPad.
(14:37):
There's this. It's okay, It's it's an antelope
with a big orange stripy jumper on.
It's a good description. Do you remember what I what it
was? Ohh no.
Boom boom boom boom. It's.
The Bongo. Yes.
Is that a bongo? Yeah, this is.
Hilarious. Are they always that colour or
did someone like? They're beautiful and they when
(14:58):
the water, when it's raining, their coat runs red.
So it's like, I sort of describeit like when fake tan comes off,
when you've got a fake tan on and it comes on, but you know,
having a fake tan on it. We've got a.
Fake. I got a fake tan 1 and I went
and did this like 10K run thing as part of a promotional thing
or whatever. And they were gonna be taking
photos for the newspaper and they were there at the finish
line and I had sweated and so they came take the photos and it
(15:23):
all like it was running down my face.
The spray tan, yeah. Wow.
OK, so yeah, I do know what. You're glad I asked you that,
actually. I don't do it anymore and.
OK, when the bongo, and I know this because I've been caring
for bongo for a big chunk of my zookeeping career.
And when that rains and if you put your hand onto their coat or
you'll see it dripping off, it runs red.
(15:43):
Like it's like the dye is running off, like it's coloured
and it's running amazing. So they are that red and which?
Is really bad for like, like in this photo, Barry the bongo is
he's back through the trees and he's looking through.
He's actually got his head slightly to the side, like
looking through the trees going,oh God, there's someone there.
And I don't know if he knows just how bright he is against
(16:04):
the trees. That is the world's worst.
Camouflage, but it's not like when you're in there and I just
got lucky for that little tiny gap in the forest.
So when people come to the exhibition, they see this photo.
I did share this photo on my social was a couple months ago.
It was a big deal for me. You will know it's not a strong
composition. It's not a photo you'll go wow,
that's like amazing composition.It's the story behind it that's
so special. S That probably is one of my
(16:25):
most challenging and I reckon that's probably up there with
one of my most big. There's highlights in
photography. It was taking this photo of this
bongo. So they are, they're like red
ghosts in the forest. Like you just don't see them.
They're critically endangered. There's about 60 of them left in
the Aberdare's National Park in Kenya.
It's like a really high sort of altitude forest.
They just recently brought in a whole heap from I think the
(16:46):
states into Kenya from zoos and they're going to do like a bit
of a soft release and they're trying to repopulate bongo.
But I went to the Aberdare's andspent, I thought I spent four
nights, three nights, four days there.
And I contacted the founder of the Bongo Surveillance Project,
a guy called Mike Prettyjohn. He's 96, I believe, and he's
dedicated his entire life to helping save bongo and other
(17:08):
species. And he come and met me and I
couldn't believe that this was agentleman that I was, you know,
communicating with and the passion and the energy and his.
Yes. Well over message over emails
and say WhatsApp and you didn't realise he was 90.
Two, and he's the most amazing man.
And I just was a bit, you know, just like never budget book
bytes cover, right? When I saw him, I was like, wow,
like he's amazing. I'm here to meet your son, Yeah.
(17:29):
Or grandson. Can't really go hiking in the
forest now he can't. So he set me up.
He was so incredibly generous and he's holding my watch with
Bongo and I would love my chanceto see Bongo.
And I know from I've got people that I'm friends of that used to
be into hunting like big like hunting animals in Africa.
And they've always said that even with the hunting that Bongo
was like, you just don't find them.
And I've had people photographers and researchers
(17:51):
say it's just really hard to seethem in the forest.
And your best bet is to go to hide and watch the salt lick.
Hard to see them, as in there's not many of them.
Well, there's less than 100 and they're just so hard to see.
So I went there a little bit naive and gave myself three
nights to sit in a hide above a salt lick.
And a salt lick is basically an open area where it looks like
(18:12):
clay, but it's essentially there's dirt and minerals and
salt. They look like they're licking
the dirt, but it's a salt lick. A lot of animals use them, and
Bongo use them a lot. I got set up.
I got given my own Ranger. They had a rifle and another
guy. I found the Brongo Project team
and my own guide Benson, who came with me, and we sat in this
little rundown piece of crap hide.
If it rained, luckily it didn't rain on me, but there's no
(18:34):
cover. There was no nothing to it was
standing, no chairs. It was like this tiny little
square wooden box. We stood on that thing for
hours. Like my legs were aching and I
had my laptop and was showing them things we collect because
people see bongos on camera traps.
So I was excited enough to go into the forest and we collected
the SD cards out of the traps and we were watching that and
seeing they're coming there every night.
(18:55):
But by the time it got to 9:00, it's pitch black dark.
I'm like, how can we get a photoof this?
We can't put any lights on theseanimals and not even a red
light. And he even had one of those
little, is it a thermal scope? He put it up and that's what
we're gonna see the bongo with. But when I looked through the
thermal scope, it wasn't workingproperly.
He couldn't even see anything. And got to about 10.
And I've been there all day really.
And I was like, this is not gonna happen.
And I'm feeling really uncomfortable and I'm cold and
(19:18):
I'm really cold 'cause it's a cloud forest basically.
So we said, alright, let's give it another go tomorrow.
And we went back and then we went out during the day, hiking
in the forest, checking with thecamera traps.
We'd missed a bongo by 45 minutes.
So we got to this camera trap and checked the card and we'd
just missed it and she'd been out all night at the Salt Lake.
I was like, oh, So we went againto the hide another 8 hours,
(19:38):
nothing. And then this Ranger said to me,
if you're willing was our last morning was the 1st of November.
I was flying out that night backto Australia and we weren't
supposed to do anything. We're supposed to just get on
the road and get back to the airport.
So if you get up like at 5:00 AM, it's still dark.
I mean, I'll take you to a Salt Lake, but we have to walk in,
and it's dangerous. And I was just like, OK, how
dangerous? He goes, well, it's pitch black,
(19:59):
dark. We're gonna have to not make any
noise at all. You're gonna have to, like, walk
so carefully so you don't tread on, like, leaves and sticks and
no talking, no lights. There's Buffalo, leopard,
elephant, hyena. Forest hogs, all these critters
that we could potentially stand blind.
I was shitting myself. So we got there and we went in
and yeah, we were walking along.I just remember thinking, this
(20:20):
is how I die. This is how this is it.
Like I'm I. Well, it was.
You'd be OK with that? Yeah, it was a good.
Story so was that my funeral going yeah and you know she.
She died doing what she loves. Taken out by a Imagine if I got
taken out by a forest hog. That wouldn't have been cool.
I would have definitely liked tobe a elephant or a Buffalo.
If you get taken out by a foresthog like your last word should
be, don't tell them it was a forest hog.
(20:41):
Oh, they're pretty mildly looking.
Make it a cooler stuff. Yeah, it would be most likely,
to be honest with you. It would be a Buffalo that would
do it, for sure. That was my biggest concern was
running into a Buffalo. And because that exact salt lick
we're walking into, I've watchedlike the night before,
elephants, Buffalo, hyena, leopard, all these animals
coming into the salt lick and you.
Know that there and they go through there.
And I'm not a quiet person and it was so hard not to make any
(21:05):
noise. And like naturally humans were
so noisy and that the range isn't so quiet.
And I'm wearing little Kathmanduhiking pants, and they're
squishing and making noises. You know, you're just so
conscious of where you're putting your feet because if the
bongo here one movement, they'regone.
Yeah. And we're getting closer and
closer. And I knew where we were roughly
because we'd hiked there the afternoon before.
And we got down there, and they were probably about maybe 100
(21:26):
meters off the salt lick. And I just saw the guard in
front of me because I was starting to just make out shapes
because the light was coming in.It was probably about, you know,
a quarter six. And the guy just froze.
I just felt his energy. And he just went bongo.
And I tell you what, I'm just like, yeah, like if I could
swear right now, I would. And I got up close and I just
saw it was a herd of bongo, two young ones.
And they were just coming off toSalt Lake into the forest.
(21:49):
And all you could see was just the red as it was sort of going.
And they look like ghosts going to the forest.
And my new camera, thankfully, is now mirrorless, which means I
can shoot. It doesn't make any noise.
It's just like it's the mirror is not, you know, moving up and
down. It's an electronic shutter.
So I just was firing at nothing.Like, I just felt like it was
so, so dark. It was my ISO.
It was like 8000 ISO or something.
(22:10):
I don't know if that means much to you, but it was very high.
Like it was like shooting in thedark.
To be yeah, To be capturing as much light as.
Possible, yeah. And then I just got so lucky
that one female, she just stopped and she stared straight
at us and I got the shot all at the time I didn't I just was
shooting like crazy. I felt like she was staring at
us for 5 minutes. I'm sure it was like 20 seconds.
Well, not even probably less 10 seconds.
And then she moved off and then they got a whip of us and they
(22:32):
just bolted. He just heard them like this
crashing through the forest. That was it.
And I burst into tears and even the rain just got a little bit,
I think a little bit worked up. They, we were really pumped
about it. And yeah.
And it was the coolest thing was, is my late best friend
Cheryl, It was her birthday. I didn't realise.
And when we're driving there, I said to my guide, what's the
date today? He said, Bobby Joe, it's the
first. Like, you're flying out tonight.
I was like, Oh my God, it's Cheryl's birthday.
(22:53):
And I said to Benson, we're gonna see a bongo this morning.
Like, she's gonna because she's a redhead, we're gonna see a
bongo this morning. And then she was there was
Cheryl at the heart at the Salt Lake staring at me.
Cheryl, good night. She's a yeah.
So that's the story behind that one.
Do you write in that? Like now that you say all that,
looking at the photo, you're right.
Composition wires or whatever, There's other photos that you
have that are like, well, yeah, the the gorilla one.
(23:15):
Yeah, him sitting in the trees, you know, the colour of all the
trees around everything. This one's quite dark.
Hmm. On both sides of it.
And then just straight through the middle, the light is hitting
this bongo. Where the salt lick is, which is
open, right? So we were in the forest and the
salt lick's kind of in the open.So that's why there's a light on
her. Yeah, yeah.
But then when you know the story, yeah.
Oh, it's so. Cool, that's a limited edition,
(23:36):
that one 'cause it's just so like, and it gave me like my
work colleagues. It takes a lot to impress my
work colleagues. Trust me, I've tried, but they
work with amazing animals every day.
So it takes a lot like one of mycolleagues, Roger, who worked
with a lot, he's been in the industry for like 30 years.
And when I go back to work, he goes, I'm shouting you a coffee
today and I go away you guys because you saw a wild bongo and
I Yeah, man, thanks dude. Like, you know, so yeah, that
(23:58):
got me a favorite of kudos and then I going back and working
with the bongo. I was just with them a couple of
days ago. Like it's just opened up a whole
new appreciation for them and their environment and.
For people that are trying to picture what it looks like.
Beautiful rusty red with white stripes running down the back,
slightly curled horns. Kind of like what animal would
you compare it to? Probably an an animal that
probably people don't know is like a kudu or yeah, I think
(24:19):
yeah, a Niala, yeah, yeah, an African antelope.
So I don't know how to do. So it's right with Antelope.
It's, oh, it is an antelope, Yeah.
Wow, I did not know that I was even getting close on that.
When I sent the photo to Mike, Pretty John, our 96 year old, my
new 96 year old friend, he was blown away with it.
He even actually turned into a Christmas card to send out to
all the sponsors and he said he wrote this little message to me.
I have to find him. I watch Sappers said no one
(24:40):
really has been as ballsy to walk in on a on a salt leak like
that. Like you're one of a handful of
people that ever photo of a bongo on foot.
Another say wow, wow. So, and we raised with this
photo, got back to the zoo and we got a wonderful team of
volunteers that dedicates so much of their time, how zoo
would not run without our volunteers.
And they're very passionate about raising money for
conservation causes. And they said, can you please do
(25:01):
a presentation about your bongo experience?
And we got together at the pub, 70 people turned up so many
volunteers and their partners and family.
And we raised about $1000 just from putting a hat around.
And I doubled it. We sent it to Mike.
He built a new hide. He knew he needed to build a new
because I said what can I help you with to say thank you for
letting me come and have this experience?
(25:21):
He said well we need to fix the hire and I said yes you do.
Yeah, you do. I know you do.
I threw some money at that and they've already fixed it.
So it's it's strategic as well. Hey, now I can go back and be a
little bit more comfortable. Well done.
Oh good God. Alright, let me describe this
next photo. So here's what I can picture has
happened. 2 giraffe were runningalong, one very closely behind
(25:42):
the other one. The front one stopped in a
hurry. Wow.
And the second one, straight up no.
This is a giraffe giving birth. Yes, yeah.
Another really rare look. This one is a risky 1 because I
don't know if people want to have a photo of a giraffe giving
birth in their wall, but it's not too confronting.
I don't. It's for me.
If no one buys this shot, I don't care.
(26:03):
It's gonna be on my wall. You know what's amazing about
the photo I've just seen? Mum is turning her neck all the
way back around the back and moving her tail out of the way.
Yep. So with her mouth.
Yeah. And she's showing when she does
that, she's giving us full display of those legs sticking
out. It's not too gory, this photo.
I actually met a lady when I took this photo in Kenya and the
(26:23):
Mara N Conservancy. I showed this photo to a woman
that come to the camp a few dayslater and she said this is what
we've been seeing this week. And she was what's What are
people called when they deliver babies?
Midwife. No, she's higher up than that.
Oncology. No, that's not what is it called
obstetrician. Obstetrician OBGYN.
She's a. Huge, big OBGYN in New York.
(26:45):
She's very high up and really good at her job and I really
connected with her. She's from New York and I
actually gave her a copy of thisphoto and she's got it on her
wall in her office, so. Wow.
Appointments about having the baby and there's a big picture
of a giraffe there with baby's legs hanging out.
But to see a giraffe give birth in the wild is really rare and
it's quite rare to see even at the zoo.
And I in all my zoo career, I'venever actually watched up this
(27:08):
bad timing. I've got there like minutes
after it's happened where the baby's still trying to.
Get to you need to be doing is setting up a hide.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just funny.
Like that's not never, never. I've never seen a birth that did
work, but then I've seen one in the wild now and it was just
amazing. And we watched the whole thing
from start to finish and it's incredible.
When that baby giraffe is born, how does straight up on their
feet, right on their wobbly legs?
(27:29):
Everyone says that, but no, it'ssat down for quite a while
within the first maybe 15 minutes or so.
Yes, it does attempt to get up, but.
I mean, that's still pretty impressive.
Falls over. I think the wildebeest get up
quicker, to be honest. The giraffe, yeah, they fall
over and it's it's quite awkwardto watch, but but it's funny as
well. Look at.
That big gangly legs. Find yourself funny, like we
were talking before on your podcast about how people have a
(27:51):
fascination of watching animals mate.
Another funny thing is US laughing at babies that have
just been born. Like, you know, if a baby come
flailing out of a person, it waslike on the floor flopping
about, we wouldn't be going ha ha ha.
Ha, you cannot control his legs.But when we see an animal, it's
like, oh, how cute. Ha ha, hilarious.
Oh look how clumsy. Good boy.
So yeah, it is cute and I had a guest with me that were from
(28:13):
Washington, American couple thatwere on their honeymoon and
their first time to Africa, first or second game drive.
I think it was all they wanted to see is the best type of
guests that we get. They just said we want to see
giraffe. I would really love to see
giraffe in the wild. I was like, yes, OK.
There's heaps of those and I know where they.
Are and then so their first giraffe sighting was watching a
giraffe give birth. Can you believe it?
(28:34):
I was just like saying you have no idea how lucky this is.
And they were just such lovely people.
I'm still in contact with them. But yeah.
So it's not a two people will love the photo, but it's, it's a
bit, Yeah. I mean, if no one buys that one,
that was a risky one that I put in there.
That's a little bit. I wouldn't say it's, it's
confronting. It's no, it's quite nice.
No, Yeah. Yeah.
And she's actually pulling her tail back.
I think she's just grooming her tail because she had like, I
(28:57):
guess parts of the amniotic sackcoming out or there's something
going on there. And but she's also she's she did
hold it for a while. So she's probably just looking
at what's happening. Yeah.
This next photo that I've got onmy screen here just made me go
whoa by looking at it. That's scary.
Is it the darkness, the cat coming out of the darkness?
(29:19):
So that's Giza Marembo, which means beautiful darkness in
Swahili. That is a leopard, an African
leopard. But she's melanistic, so she
has, no, she's completely black and she's quite famous.
And I have some wonderful gueststhat wanted to go see her.
And I was a little bit indifferent to her because we
humans, we do this thing, we geta fascination for anything
that's really different. So anything is like albino or
(29:40):
which is white, anything that's anything, it's just odd and not,
you know, it's actually a genetic mutation.
She's not supposed to be that. Way.
What are the black ones? Leopards.
No Panthers. Well, no.
Oh. What?
No. So you hear people say Black
Panther. There's a whole movie franchise
about it. A Black Panther is just a
leopard that's melanistic. It's a black leopard, really.
(30:01):
Yeah, it's a Panther a thing. Not really, no.
So they call it the Florida Panther.
You hear that? That's basically a cougar or
Puma. So no.
So India, like the famous, what's his name?
Bagheera in the in the jungle. MMM.
He's actually a black leopard. Yeah.
Melanistic. So they just don't.
But if you look closely at that photo, you'll see she remember
the rosettes were just talking about before.
Yeah, she's still got them. Oh, she does.
(30:22):
And when you put the torch on her and the Schwenger came into
the light, you'll see a certain angle.
You'll see the rosettes very clearly.
Wow. And I was so indifferent to her
because I'd seen her getting around on social media.
People were like photographing geezer, geezer this, geezer
that. And I was like, OK, like Geezer
is, it's just a leopard and she's black.
Cool. I'm not going to go all the way
(30:43):
up there with guests and advertise as a black leopard
safari because you're setting yourself up for failure, like if
she doesn't turn up. And as it was, we had six, like
these particular guests, it was a private safari.
They're British. They're wonderful people to
travel with. And they wanted to go to Kenya
anyways. And they said, let's go take a
chance to go see Geezer. And I was like, OK, cool.
That's hilarious. Did you say they're British?
(31:03):
Yeah, And they. Just the geezers are gonna see
geezers they. Just wanted to go and see a
geezer. Well the the the big cat went
away that day as well going you wouldn't believe what I saw.
I saw a bunch of geezers. Oh mate, I had bloody plenty
sightings of geezer geezer coming at me ears.
No, but these the geezers we actually called ourselves in the
WhatsApp group, they called themselves the geezers.
Geezers, Geezers. Geezers.
(31:24):
Yeah. Oh, they're funny.
They're most funniest people. Especially Nigel.
He's hilarious. He's one of the best birders in
the world. Like he's seen over half the
world species of birds. Wow, 10,000 birds give or take
on the planet. He's seen like 6000 I think.
Amazing. Yeah, I think I've got that
right. He's in some special club like
the, I don't know, the 6000 club, I know it's called.
Anyways, we saw Geezer, but we had six chances to see her and
(31:47):
we got to, we had lots of great normal leopard sightings, which
were wonderful. But everyone's like, that was in
the Black Keep. We gotta see the black leopard.
The last sighting, the last hourof the 6th drive.
So the last drive we hadn't seenher.
And I was like, wow, OK, well, this is exactly my point.
Like she's not that easy to see.And we were just about to give
up and go and have ours downer in the Bush, like have a beer or
(32:08):
gin and tonic. We're driving along and all of a
sudden we got a spotter on top and he's like, Geezer, She came
out of the darkness and I couldn't even see her.
She's that black. She'd come out of the darkness
and the first thing I saw when she turned to me was those
yellow eyes. And I actually was.
Like. Holy shit, like a whole wow.
Like I was a fan. Like in a split second I was
(32:28):
like, she's worth every bit of money we've spent here and every
bit of time, and she was just magnificent.
She's the scariest looking one out of all of your photos that
I've seen. She's not scary cat, she's the
most confident leopard I've everseen in my life.
And she caught a scrub hair. It's like, yeah, yeah, like a
hair. And she caught that in front of
us. Like she was running around the
Bush and she grabbed it, and then she walked out of the Bush.
(32:49):
My favorite photo of her is not one that would go on your wall.
She's actually sitting there staring straight at me with her
big yellow eyes, with her hair hanging out of her mouth.
And you can see the breadth of the hair like because.
It's Oh no. And that's like, that's a shot
that I would put on my wall, butas I had to put my marketing
brain on and go, no, no, that's not going to sell, but that's
the shot for me. I'll probably post that.
I think I have posted that. But she just did a few times.
(33:11):
She would walk directly towards us.
And I kept saying to the guide, I was so excited.
Like I was grabbing my guests and like, you know, like it was
next level. The geezers were like just
jumping out of their skin. They're like, what, you know.
And then now we had dinner in the Bush afterwards.
We were just buzzing so much about this sighting and yeah,
she was. She's just incredible.
She's just had a cub and it would turned out to be a normal
cub. Everyone, I think everyone was
(33:33):
hoping people were advertising come and see the black leopard
cub. It's about to get like she's
about to give birth. I'm like, but you don't go into
the Bush and find leopards. They find you.
You can't search for a leopard. You can just drive around and
hope you see one. When they want to be seen, they
show themselves. I just said, I guess you don't.
Yeah, you can go searching for aline and a cheater.
They're pretty predictable with their movements.
Leopard. No way.
(33:53):
So people are actually advertising for like, come and
see a geezer's leopard. Oh, sorry, Geezer's cub.
And she's pumped out a normal cub and was like, oh, you know,
but it doesn't cool seeing a normal spotted, like, coloured
cub next to her. Yeah, but.
And I said to my guide, why are her eyes so yellow?
And he just smiled at me. He's a wonderful Maasai guide.
(34:13):
And like he Pierre. And he said to me, they're
normal. It's just because of the
contrast, because she's so dark.And I was like, oh, so yeah.
Oh wow. Hmm, so it'd actually be the
same colour eyes that would be on a well.
The leopard eyes, they have different colouration.
The Sri Lankan leopards had a really beautiful bluish green,
grey look about them and a lot of leopards have really yellow
eyes, but she's got normal coloured eyes.
(34:33):
It's just 'cause she's so dark. So cool.
No, she's love these photos. Yeah, So she's gonna be on
display and available here to purchase.
Yeah. Do you have any photos you're
pretty confident that'll go? Well, I'll let you in a secret.
I sold one this morning, so I'vehad people contact me already.
They're excited about the exhibition, and they might
necessarily not wanna go to it for a whole different reasons,
(34:54):
like it's, you know, they're notsocial or they can't get there
and it's Northern. Beaches, there's people all
around, different. Places.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I've had a someone purchase achimp portrait that's gonna be
included. It's still available for
purchase and the exhibition, youjust have to order another one.
But he's already taken the firstone, so people can contact me if
they wanna get in a little bit earlier.
Mm Hmm. But yeah, I have a feeling.
(35:15):
I think I'll know. It's funny.
I think I know what's gonna sell, but you just don't know.
There's some shops. You know you should do write
them down. Yeah, the ones I think.
Yeah, write. Down your predictions for now
and then in a couple of weeks when it's all over and they go
back and have a look at it and and see.
And I've put, I've tried to put in a variety of species.
Yeah, cats are heavy because everyone loves the cats.
Elephants, giraffe, there's somespecies in that people are going
(35:36):
to go the shoe, the shoe bill. Maybe I might be selling the
shoe bill shot to you. There's a shoe bill in flight.
I love the shoe bill. So funny shots and then that
people that people go, oh, OK, there's one particular shot
which I haven't released it before.
It's taken an injury of a tiger.Have you got that shot there in
the water? What do you think of that shot?
Blashing out of the water, goinginto the water, coming out of
the water. So that's ready.
(35:57):
And she is a young female tigress and she so tigress is
females and tiger male and I've photographed her as a cub when
she was small. And her mother is Arrowhead and
Arrowhead is the granddaughter of the one of the most famous
tigers in India called Muchley areally cool documentary on her.
It's called the Lady of the Lakes.
So she has this like this particular tiger.
(36:19):
They that's what I love about the Indians.
They they love their tigers and they, it's the tigers have
become like a the royal family like it's.
The old lineage. And Marchley is like, she was
the queen and then she has her lineage and that really comes
from royalty. And she's now Lady of the Lakes.
So that's the title of the shot,I think ready, Lady of the
Lakes. She's that's this main zone in,
in Rantambour National Park in India.
(36:40):
And she's ruling it at the moment.
She's got some Cubs. And I was telling my guests all
about her and we hadn't seen heryet.
And one afternoon there were so many people on this game drive
and it was like loads of people everywhere.
And they all got a whiff that there was a tiger that really
had come out. So they all took off to the
other side of the lake and we could see her coming.
And our guide said, let's just hang here.
If you're OK, I'll say yes, let's stay here.
I don't want to go with all the crowd.
(37:01):
Oh man, we got lucky. So she started walking towards
us from the other side of the lake.
And then she picked up the speedand I said to my guests, and
there was Samba, which are samba, a really big deer.
We actually have them feral herein Australia, I think.
Huge, big, sort of dark, not a very nice looking deer, but
they're in. They like to go into the water
and tigers will hunt in the water.
I said to my guests really mightcharge through this water in a
second after these samba deer. So, you know, put your shutter
(37:24):
speeds like, you know, 2000 and higher, set yourselves up.
And as I said that, she picked up the pace and she come
charging towards us. She's just hit that water so
hard and fast and she missed thesamba.
And one of my guests was very grateful for that.
He's like, oh, no, I don't want to see kill.
And I was just like, I don't. She was, yeah, she'd come out of
nowhere in such an open space. They stay clocked.
(37:44):
Just straight away she didn't stand a chance.
But when she came through that water, just seeing, when I saw
the shot afterwards, I was like,I just knew I had something.
And I showed everybody in the truck and you know what their
first response was? That's gotta go into the
exhibition 'cause I was coming home to do the exhibition and my
Indian guy said that shot is in the exhibition, don't share it.
The big spot. The muscles like she is rich.
(38:06):
Yeah. And that shot's one of the big
one. It's gonna be huge at the right.
Yeah. I have a feeling that will sell
my prediction. Probably.
I will probably buy my own shot.No, really, it's, it's a
cracker. That's great.
But yeah, well. Thank you for showing those to
me. That's.
Cool. I don't.
Yeah. I don't have to go to the
exhibition now. Oh, come on, I.
Don't like going? Look at the yeah.
You're gonna look at the virtualexhibition Your Anti Social.
(38:28):
And do it from my couch. Yeah, no, it's I'm really
excited about it. And please guys, if you're
listening, you wanna come on to the opening night, I will be in
residence. So I'll be there, met Gullah and
all, not. Only in residence in Camilla.
In Camilla. Yeah, come and say hello.
I'd probably be there. That would be the only time I'll
probably be there because I haveto go back to the zoo.
I have to go back to work. But it's open for two weeks, so
(38:51):
come on down. If you can't make it.
I'll put the link up for the virtual exhibition.
You can have a look. All the stories are there.
And yeah. As you're listening to this, I
will put the link to it in the show notes here as well, so in
the description of the episode, so you can go straight to it
from there. It's so nice to catch up with
you. Yeah, it's been great catching
up with you. Really cool because Rabs live.
Rabs lives 300 metres from my sister.
Yeah, so that's another weird coincidence.
(39:13):
I know. Oh, you had one.
Even weirder. I got totally freaked out the
other day. I was recording with a lady from
my podcast and at the end we're just standing around chatting
and I just turned off the cameras from filming in the pod
van. And when she said what she said,
I was like, Oh no, I didn't capture that because it was
(39:34):
amazing. But then I realised it wasn't.
And he was like, OK, for a moment I was like, this is
crazy. She's, you should talk to my
sister. She's got amazing stories.
I was like, Oh yeah, what is shedoing?
She goes, she spends like 6-7 months a year overseas on safari
and she's from the coast and I've just gone.
You're Bobby Jo's sister. And she went what?
(39:56):
I was like, Bobby Jo, is that your sister?
And she has, you know, and she'stelling me her sister's name's
Lauren or something. I was like, oh, OK.
Oh, wait, what? Because I know Bobby Jay's
sister is here on the coast. Yeah.
Who? Else here has a story of their
sister spends all those months over years on surprise.
So there's another one. Is there?
Yeah, she goes over and does, because then I was like, wait,
(40:16):
you, you can't be doing the samething.
Maybe you go by another name or something, She said.
No, she does goes over and does volunteering and work with all
these different charities and things over there.
So. Yeah, yeah, My sister's too shy
to talk on your podcast with my sister, but I want to get her
own one. I was.
Like, how have I just finished talking to you and we never
clicked that you're Bobby Jay's sister?
Because she's not. Well, thank you for joining us
(40:38):
guys, and I look forward to seeing her at the exhibition and
there's a whole lot of podcasts coming up from my travels from
India and Sri Lanka and even my mum.
That's going to be an interesting one.
Tune in for that one if you wantsome gossip on me.
It's great to have you guys hereand I'll see you next time.
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
(41:01):
Facebook at Bobby Joe Safaris. And if you'd love to join one of
her photography tours or workshops, you can find all the
details at bobbyjoesafaris.com.
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