A mother's sorrow.

Have just returned from another amazing trip to Botswana where I captured this dramatic, sad and yet powerful image of a lioness carrying off her dead 3 week old cub that had been trampled by buffalo, during the attack the cubs sought shelter down a warthog hole and she had been digging for over an hour in a vain attempt to rescue them, all the time pausing to hear and then call, sadly she lost all 3 of her litter on this fateful evening.
She carried her tiny son for over a kilometre before placing it in a dense thicket and then consuming it in some bizarre ceremony ............just exactly why lionesses do this is still very much a point of conjecture.

Not an easy event to witness and document, there wasn't a dry eye in our vehicle that evening I can tell you.

Being @ f/2.8 & 12800 ISO, well after sunset and with light at an extreme premium and frankly if it weren't for pushing my 400/2.8 & D4s, capturing any sort of a reasonable quality image just wouldn't have been possible IMO.

Selinda, Botswana

D4s, Nikkor 400 f/2. E FL 1/250s f/2.8 ISO12800, bean bag from front pax seat, slight crop for comp, curves, levels adj, slight NR on BG only, PS CC '15 & ACR.

C & C most welcome

Cheers
Marc