46.7

This picture was shot in the Chitabe area of the Okavango Delta in Botswana. We were photographing some wattled cranes when we spotted a lioness
stalking in the distance. We drove across the water. I put down a camera which had a 400 mm lens with a 1.4X converter – and picked up another with a 70-200 mm zoom. The action started as soon as we reached the area where the
lioness had been seen. The lioness’ companion, perhaps a sister, had driven a small group of impala towards her. The lioness leapt out of the grass and missed – the impala passing between her head and the left front leg. The second picture shows the impala between the head and the leg, the third one shows the impala to have escaped and a cut on its rump inflicted by the lioness’ nails, the fourth one shows muscle tissue through the cut and the lioness is trying to grab the foot of the impala. She could not (this picture) – and all the impalas escaped. I shot 27 pictures in 6-7 seconds; the first 10 of which have the same time mark and show the lioness jumping on the impala, missing it, twisting to catch it, falling on the ground, and righting herself for the pursuit. She ran for a few seconds more – and then gave up the chase. Subsequently, we saw that the lioness had a corneal opacity in the left eye which was blind. The
lack of depth perception likely resulted in the lioness misjudging the location/distance of the impala. Photo of lioness showing blind eye:500px.com/photo/10539633