King of Savuti

Taken in Savuti, in Chobe National Park, Botswana - on safari with Steve Stockall (Earth Ark Travel). Savuti has a reputation among guides for big cats and big drama, and this trip didn't disappoint: this particular male lion was part of a large pride, somewhere around twenty individuals.

He was lying out in grass that had turned completely golden, mane catching the light, in that particular way male lions have of looking utterly unbothered by the world around them. There's a stillness in this image that I think captures Savuti itself rather well - vast, dry, golden, and ruled over by animals that know exactly how much space they're entitled to.