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Masai Mara, Kenya - July 2017

Already going towards the lodge, with the afternoon falling on a very gray day, I asked the driver to stop the car for taking one last photo of this beautiful lonely acacia on the horizon.
Curiously, and as i framed the scene, it appears from nowhere this solitary cheetah, marking its territory along the tree. After a short moment, she walks out of scene leaving, behind the void that I had previously encountered.
It is incredible as in the wild this moments are so brief and so many difficult to capture.
It's one of my favorite photographs of this trip.

Males mark their territory by urinating on objects that stand out, such as trees, logs, or termite mounds for example.

Females on the other hand, and unlike males and other felines, do not establish territories, living in home ranges instead, alone or with their offspring.

These home range overlap with other females home ranges, often those of their daughters, mothers, or sisters.
Females always hunt alone, although cubs will accompany their mothers to learn to hunt once they reach the age of five to six weeks.

The size of a home range depends entirely on the availability of prey.

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