Eyes on her prize

A female that is a familiar face, is back... Most of you will recall the Tatowa female, a young but small and beautiful leopardess has made her return into the reserve after spending the last year or so raising her male cub further North of our reserve, North of Selati Camp.

Due to the high density of leopard at Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve, this female leopard decided to move off our reserve to a quieter, less dense part of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve to raise a litter of cubs. Even though the chances would be greater at successfully raising her litter, it was still a difficult push as she returns only raising one male cub who we believe is close to independence, however this is still a great achievement due to their high mortality rate.

Now by bringing the male cub back to her previous territory, this could possibly ensure his survival to independence as she makes use of the strong protection of the cub’s father, the powerful Maxabeni male. The only interesting factor about her claim to her old territory is that this territory has now being occupied by the Ntsumi female - so whose territory will it be - the Tatowa or Ntsumi’s?

Keep following to find out...

Equipment Used

• Camera – Canon 7D mk ii
• Lens and Focal length – Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM at 200 mm

Settings used to capture this image

• ISO – 250
• Aperture – f2.8
• Shutter – 1/2500

Editing used on this image

A very interesting image to edit. During my shot I increased my shutter speed due to the fast-moving action from the subject (leopard). As it was early morning, not a lot of natural light available I also increased some highlights, as well as whites and dropped the shadows to bring out the subject (leopard) as the higher shutter speed with minimal light darkens parts of the image.