Leopard at Seronera

The leopard is a predator that hunts by hiding and pouncing. He is the best climber of the big cats, and he spends much of his time up in trees. This provides an airy vantage point where he can watch for his prey. It is amazing how difficult it is to see an animal of this size. When I first started visiting East Africa, I had gone for several trips and still not seen a leopard in the wild.

The acacia forest of the Seronera River in Tanzania was considered to be one of the surest places to see a leopard. I was told that the leopard's body was hard to see up in the tree, but the tail dangling down was a giveaway. I spent hours looking for tails in that forest, and it seemed that every other tree had a broken branch of the right thickness hanging at the right angle. Finally we found one, and this is a picture of it. I wanted to show the sculptural, sinuous branches creating pleasing negative shapes of sky. The leopard has raised its head to look at us and look around before laying it down again to continue his nap until hunting time.