Catnapping on the savanna: a view of lions in Tanzania

THE Traveler: Margaret Maire of St. James, Minn.

The scene: Five lions got some shut-eye amid the sprawling branches of a sausage tree in the Serengeti. "We were incredibly lucky to find so many sleeping in the tree," Maire wrote in an e-mail, adding that the animals seemed unaffected by the safari vehicle parked below them.

The trip: Maire went on safari with African Travel Resource (africatravelresource.com) and stayed in tent camps. "This was the greatest way to experience the wildlife," she wrote. "We woke up one morning, stepped out of our tent only to see two giraffe eating from the trees behind our tents."

A rare sight: Maire wrote that her guide, who had been doing such work for more than 20 years, said he'd witnessed such a scene only a couple of times. "The lions barely moved during the 45 minutes we observed," she wrote, marveling at how the large cats balanced on such small limbs. "Their legs dangled, like a rag doll, oftentimes hitting the heads or bodies of the lions right below," she wrote.

Equipment: Maire captured this image with a Canon Power­Shot SX50.

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