Reflections in a Golden Eye

Normally the lions in the Ruaha National Park in Tanzania completely disregard vehicles, but this female was keeping an eye on ours with unusual intensity. If you increase the magnification, you can the vehicle reflected in her eyes. That's me reflected in the exact center of the pupil of her left eye.

The lioness and her pride were hanging around the carcass of a giraffe they had taken down four days previously. After four days in the tropical sun, the huge carcass was in an advanced state of decomposition. Even our guide was a little repelled by the odor. But the lions were prepared to defend the giraffe against all comers.

I took the image with a Canon 7D Mark II with an EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens with a 1.4X III teleconverter. The exposure settings were 1/800sec, f/9.0, ISO 1250, 560 mm, handheld.