Leopard in Tree

Khwai, Botswana, 2016

Spotting a leopard is always exciting regardless of how good the sighting turns out to be. Often the sighting lasts only a few moments as the leopards disappears into high grass almost as quickly as it appeared. Other times, the leopard sticks around, sometimes with a kill, but the sighting makes for bad photography (i.e. obscured by thick vegetation, veiled in dark shadows, or cast in less than flattering light). But when everything lines-up, spotting a leopard can be spiritual. Only 100 meters from our campsite, this leopard had a fresh kill, which kept her around for 3 days. The afternoon I took this photo was particularly good as we had 2.5 hrs of quality time together. The type of sighting that makes the endless hours of searching time well spent.