Camera: Canon EOS R5

Lens: Canon RF 100-500mm

Aperture: f7.1

Shutter speed: 1/1600

ISO: 400

Description: Young Faulu just had a successful hunt and managed to get a banded mongoose - the picture shows the intimate link of life with death. - basically the circle of life.

Story from behind the lens: We watched from a distance as young Faulu scanned the area from her vantage point high on a tree. She eventually descended and kept her focus on possible prey in the distance. She was stalking something in the long grass and in a brief and explosive charge she pounced. As she walked towards our vehicle we were able to see that she had successfully hunted a banded mongoose with a single bite to the neck. For a while i felt torn between the determination to survive captured in the eyes of this young leopard who had recently lost her mother and the last cry that i heard of the mongoose. It was the epitome of the circle of life.