Into the Wind

A dominant male lion holds his gaze at me in the open eastern Serengeti, mane lifting in the wind while the morning sun came in low from the side. We had gone out from Namiri Plains camp looking for the resident pride and found them not far out, two males running ahead of the group through the short grass. This one was the larger of the pair, known to our guide but not given a name, the kind of animal that fills a frame before you even raise the camera. I kept low and held still when he turned and looked directly at me. The breeze lifted his mane exactly when the light caught it, and I had him for a few seconds before he looked away. Lions hold this ground well in the Serengeti, which carries the largest remaining lion population in Africa, but the species has been listed Vulnerable globally for decades, its range contracting on every boundary that isn't protected.