Fresh Kill - Kruger National Park, South Africa

One of the goals when visiting Africa on safari is to capture photographs of the "Big Five". The term was originally used by big game hunters to reference the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot. Included in the Big Five are the elephant, lion, cape buffalo, leopard, and rhinoceros. They were chosen to be included due to the difficulty and danger involved in hunting them.

Photographing them is a lot easier than hunting them and not very dangerous at all. By the last day of the safari, we had many photographs of four of the five. The leopard had proven elusive, and when we headed out on our last morning, hope was starting to fade. About 15 minutes after entering the park, we got very lucky. A male leopard was spotted that had just made a kill and was dragging it to a culvert along the road. After getting some decent shots, we started driving away. Everyone was quite excited and happy, but the adventure was only half over. I happened to spot some movement to our right, which turned out to be the leopard's female counterpart.  I fired off this shot of the female as it approached the culvert. Her eyes were intent on eating, but the male decided that he wasn't going to share his kill and sent her on her way. Quite interesting behavior.