More pictures of animals

2020


The embrace

Sergey scoured the forest for signs of Amur, or Siberian, tigers, searching for the best place to set up his camera trap. He knew his chance of photographing one was slim, but his mind was made up. ‘From then on, I could think of nothing else,’ Sergey says. After 10 months, his dedication paid off: he captured a rare glimpse of this magnificent tiger in its wild habitat.




Wolf Mountain

Lorenzo was determined, having devoted six months to finding the perfect spot from which to photograph wolves. After securing his camera trap to a tree, he spent hours adjusting the settings to include the mountain backdrop. As these wolves loped along a regular route, their coats a mirror of the surroundings, Lorenzo achieved this atmospheric shot.




Ocelot on the Highway

The fallen tree, bridging a small river, shouted ‘wildlife highway’ to Charlie. He spent weeks perfecting the set-up of his camera trap so that it would reveal elusive species in daylight as they emerged from the forest and crossed the bridge. Over several months, he captured images of many animals, including this handsome ocelot, the early morning light brightening its face.




Alpine Revelation

When Andrea spotted one ibex, the more he looked, the more he saw. A herd of around 50 was loitering in the shadows, a few younger ones fighting listlessly. Andrea captured this small group against the cliffs, the rich scenery splashed with colourful minerals and lichens.




The Pose

The proboscis monkey cocked its head slightly and closed its eyes. It posed for a few seconds, as if in meditation. A wild visitor to a sanctuary feeding station, this monkey was ‘the most laid-back character’, says Mogens. Its peaceful expression was quite unlike anything he had seen before.




Taiga Tiger in the Night

Sergey had never set eyes on a wild tiger when he resolved to photograph one in the east of Russia. He found his ideal setting, minus the cat, and hid his camera on a tree. A few days later, a young Amur, or Siberian, tiger gave Sergey the portrait he had hoped for, the colours of its coat harmonising with the surroundings.




Eye of the Drought

An eye blinked in the drought-stricken mud pool as the hippopotamus emerged to take a breath. The challenge for Jose, watching from his vehicle, was to catch the eye when it was open. Having observed hippos for years, he knew that they only come up for air every three to five minutes.




Top Picker

Looking up, Max was astonished to see a tayra peering down at him. He had occasionally encountered these elusive mammals bounding along the forest floor, yet this one was high in a Panama rubber tree, picking fruit with its teeth. Aiming his camera straight up to the clouds, Max captured this rare shot.




Night Hunter

Having tracked this great grey owl’s every move for weeks, Jonas set out in his car, on the night of a full moon, to capture a photograph of the bird. When he spotted his subject, Jonas cast his headlights towards it and sneaked into the forest. He caught the owl raising its claw, poised to attack a vole.




Life in the Balance

Jaime walked for four hours to reach this location, determined to share his passion for glass frogs. He was thrilled to catch sight of one eating a spider, its eyes like shimmering mosaics. Serenaded by a frog chorus in torrential rain, Jaime claimed the first-ever picture of this species feeding.




Head Start

Dhritiman spent many days watching gharials from the riverbank in silence so as not to disturb them.




Great crested Sunrise

Up to his chest in water, Jose Luis shot this intimate moment with a family of great crested grebes. When one parent emerged with damp feathers and a fish, Jose Luis was lucky that not a breath of wind rippled the water. A stripy-headed chick stretched out of its sanctuary, open-beaked, to claim the tasty meal.




Snake Versus Eagle

When a short-toed snake-eagle flew past and swooped upon an Indian rat snake, Sambath thought the action would be over in seconds. Yet the snake fought back. ‘It coiled all over the eagle,’ he explains. ‘At one point, I thought it might escape.’ Through his open car window, Sambath captured the animals, eyes locked, in combat.




When Mother Says Run

This rare scene of playful Pallas’s cats took six years to capture. Hiding opposite an old marmot hole in which a family of cats had built its lair, Shanyuan waited. Hours of patience were rewarded when three kittens emerged to play while their parent kept a lookout. Upon the sighting of a Tibetan fox nearby, the youngsters were swiftly ushered back inside.




Surprise!

Makoto spent hours hiding behind a tree in the hope of seeing this owl couple pose or perform. Then a squirrel appeared. It approached the owls’ nesthole and peered in before suddenly leaping away and speeding into the forest, as if realising its mistake. With equally quick reactions, Makoto framed the squirrel’s frenzied escape under the owls’ watchful gaze.




Kids' Game

Yossi knew the ibex herd took the same route to find water and food every morning, so he was in position before first light. On cue, the ibex appeared. The adults walked nimbly around the cliff edge, but the kids couldn’t resist jumping over the ravine as ‘a game’, Yossi recalls. ‘This one bleated a few times then found the courage.’




The Current of Life

Thousands of convict surgeonfish congregated to spawn in a narrow channel leading to the South Pacific Ocean – and sharks gathered to feed on them. Laurent photographed the fish scattering as the last rays of sun lit their billowing eggs. He spent four years diving around this remote coral reef observing its marine life.

2018

Bed of Seals

The sea was relatively calm when Cristobal launched his drone from a small rubber dinghy in the Errera Channel of the Antarctic Peninsula. Rising above the sea, the drone revealed a small ice floe spilling over with crabeater seals. Part of the ice was splattered red with their excrement – the digested remains of their favourite food, krill.




Eye to Eye

As Emanuele walked along the beach, the stench of rotting sea lion carcasses was almost unbearable. He had seen insects feeding on the corpses, but knew when he saw the iguanas eating the insects that he’d found something interesting. Lying on the sand, choked by the vile smell, he caught this iguana peeping through an eye socket




The Midnight Passage

‘A dream came true when I took this picture,’ says Vegard. After years of searching, he had finally found a riverside location visited by the deer of Valldal. After partly submerging his camera in a waterproof box, he set up a flash above and below the water, along with motion sensors. Near midnight, a male crossed the river – the camera capturing its proud pose.




The Golden Couple

As the group of Qinling golden snub-nosed monkeys jumped from tree to tree, Marsel struggled to keep up, slipping and stumbling over logs. Gradually he learned to predict their behaviour, and captured this male and female resting. With the Sun filtering through the canopy, they are bathed in a magical light, their golden hair glowing against the fresh greens of the forest.




Looking for Love

Tony was on a mission – he wanted to capture an image that portrayed the ‘unique expression and burning desire of a male in love’. His subject was the Asian sheepshead wrasse, a fish found near Sado Island. After years of planning, and amid torrential rain, he finally found an earnest suitor for his portrait. ‘This,’ he says, ‘is the face of a fish looking for love’.




Hellbent

Clamped in the jaws of a hungry hellbender salamander, things were not looking good for the northern water snake. But when its attacker repositioned its bite, the snake pushed free and escaped. David was thrilled to catch a battle between these two unlikely foes. ‘I’ve seen hellbenders display an array of behaviours, but this was by far the most remarkable,’ he says.




Blood Thirsty

Working on a climate change story, Thomas had secured a rare permit to land on Wolf Island, a remote part of the Galápagos Islands. Scrambling over loose rocks to reach this plateau, he spied a bizarre scene – pecking away at the flight feathers of a Nazca booby was a sharp-beaked ground finch. With scarce food alternatives, it had resorted to drinking blood to survive.




Fitting the Bill

Jess captured the intense focus of this great northern diver parent, a species that usually lays just one to three eggs. With food for its precious chick gripped in its beak, its piercing red eyes stand out from its smart summer plumage.




Flight

After days of rough seas, Sue woke to find tranquil water and a single young booby circling. ‘Suddenly, a fish leapt out,’ she says, ‘and down came the booby’. With quick reactions, her camera already poised, she captured the fleeting moment of the bird in hot pursuit, reflected in the painterly water.




Trailblazer

By one in the morning, the forest was quiet, but its nightlife shone out from the leaf litter. The star of the show was a large firefly larva about seven centimetres long, which emitted a continuous glow from four light organs at its rear end. Using a long exposure with a burst of flash, Christian revealed the larva apparently blazing a trail.




Dinner For Two

Justin spotted these hungry blue dragons closing in on a by-the-wind sailor in a rock pool, and wanted to capture this ‘different layer of life in the ocean’. He used an underwater torch to light his shot from beneath, and framed their elaborate forms from above, against a galaxy of reflective particles.




The Bigger Bite

Perching in a small motor boat on a fast-flowing river, Chris steadied his long lens on this battle. The jaguar had come across the yacaré caiman by chance – accidentally stepping on the reptile after a failed charge at a capybara. Without hesitation the jaguar pounced, overcoming its monstrously large prey in minutes.




The Meerkat Mob

Rearing its head, an Anchieta’s cobra lunged towards two meerkat pups. Reacting instantly, their 20-strong pack ran back to the warren and split into two – half ushering the pups away, the other half advancing towards the snake, growling and fluffing up their coats. Focusing on the snake’s classic profile, Tertius caught the meerkat mob’s fear and aggression.




Ahead in the Game

After tracking this pack of African wild dogs on foot for more than three kilometres, Nicholas looked on as this pair of pups played a macabre game with the remains of their baboon breakfast. ‘Half of me felt disturbed by the disrespect this deceased fellow primate was receiving,’ he says. ‘The other half was caught up in the infectious joy of the puppies.’




Kitten Combat

It had been a year since Julius had set up his camera trap and he only had two records of a Eurasian lynx to show for it. Overcoming problems with failed batteries, deep snow and spider webs he was on the brink of giving up when his luck changed. As soft light hit the snow-clad branches, two kittens turned up to play, rewarding Julius with nearly 100 images.




Night Snack

Large numbers of herring were overwintering in the northern fjords, attracting hundreds of predators and night fishing boats. The killer whales had realised that the sound of nets being hauled up meant the possibility of an easy meal. Audun asked the fishermen to angle their strongest light into the water, to capture his shot.




Silent Skirmish

In a winter white-out, two short-eared owls squabbled over a mouse that the larger one had caught. Michel focused on their piercing yellow eyes, capturing the scene from his car so as not to disturb them. As the owls demonstrated their aerial agility, Michel captured his shot, but the contest had no victor. ‘The mouse fell and escaped alive,’ he says.

2017

The look of a whale

The female humpback whale repeatedly approached Wade, her eye wide open to get a good look. She had recently given birth and was probably sizing him up to see if he posed any risk to her calf. ‘With a close-up portrait, I wanted to capture something of the intensity of her look and her intelligence,’ says Wade.




Arctic treasure

In late May, a quarter of a million snow geese arrive on Wrangel Island – the world’s largest breeding colony. Opportunistic Arctic foxes take advantage of the feast, stealing eggs and caching them for leaner times. But the geese and foxes are well matched – it would have taken luck and cunning to win this prize.




Toad with attitude

The moon shone bright over the Tiputini River, making it easy for Jaime to find his way as he searched for nocturnal wildlife. A huge smooth-sided toad was clambering and hopping along the river bank. Eventually the toad paused to rest, and Jaime noticed its belly, speckled with white spots ‘like stars in the sky’.




Night of the turtles

Ingo was in Costa Rica for three weeks, but the conditions he needed – an arribada (a mass arrival of turtles) and enough light to capture the spectacle – only combined on one night. Tracing their paths with a four-second exposure in the dim blue of the night, he portrayed hundreds of turtles dragging themselves up the sand.




Snap shot

As Rodrigo dived down, two crocodiles lunged at one another, less than a metre away. The fight lasted seconds, but it was a moment Rodrigo had dreamed of for years. Lying on the bottom, camera pre-set to shoot into the surface light, and strobes aimed downwards to minimise backscatter, he finally captured the fierce energy of a clash.




The gladiator versus the beetle

Javier was taking pictures of the insects attracted to the lights of a lodge when his friend pointed out this tree frog battling a weevil. Javier framed his shot, the frog’s gold-flecked eyes echoed by the glow through the patterned glass. Two photos later, the weevil escaped and the frog narrowly avoided choking.




The incubator bird

For four long months, this male brush turkey worked tirelessly to tend his nest mound. It was imperative that his eggs, buried deep under the rotting vegetation, were kept at 33°C. For Gerry, the turkey’s repetitive nature was an opportunity to experiment, enabling him to ‘come up with new and interesting ways’ to capture a ‘commonplace subject’.




Picky eaters

Daniel first spotted these marabou storks as they patiently waited on the sidelines, watching as a group of vultures fed on a zebra carcass. Seizing the opportunity, he quickly set up his camera and retreated to a nearby wall to wait for the shot. Not long after, the vultures left the scene and the storks approached the carcass to feast.




Resplendent delivery

Tyohar watched every day for a week as a pair of resplendent quetzals delivered fruit and food to their two chicks. The birds’ erratic movements made them difficult to photograph, however Tyohar remained patient. This unique composition of a male quetzal in flight is a reminder, not only of Tyohar’s tenacity, but also of the bond he brokered with the winged family.




Breakfast at dawn

Jari arrived before dawn to photograph a pair of divers. His attention was on the adult preening nearby when the other landed with a skidding splash right in front of his floating hide, gripping their chick’s breakfast in its beak. Light bounced off ripples, fish and feathers, creating an explosion of sparkles that was, Jari says, ‘heavenly’.




Crab surprise

Justin was busy documenting an artificial reef experiment when the army of crabs appeared, with an octopus acting ‘like an excited child in a candy store’, as it chose its final catch. The irony of this unexpected encounter isn’t lost on Justin: ‘An aggregation of crabs the size of a football field wandered through the experiment and we had no idea why.’




Wings of winter

Hunting for moths with a torch, ‘I was soon covered in them’, says Imre. He used an in-camera double exposure, lighting the moth with multiple bursts from a stroboscopic flash and firing the shutter again with the focus on the stars. It took many attempts to create this image, revealing the moth’s night-time pursuits.




Romance among the angels

He was meant to be filming salmon, but as soon as Andrey jumped in, he changed his mind. Surrounded by thousands of mating sea angels he quickly swapped to macro equipment. In strong currents, close to fishing nets, Andrey captured this little known and rarely photographed spectacle.




Giant gathering

Dozens of sperm whales mingled noisily off the coast, stacked as far as Tony could see. Immediately, he realised that this was something special – like a gathering of clans, these whales were part of a multi-day congregation. For Tony, the sight filled him with hope that ‘the recovery of sperm whale populations may be going well’.




Spring release

John waited patiently, never taking his eyes off the animals at the waterhole. Drought had heightened tensions in Kruger National Park and if he was lucky, he would be able to capture a crocodile attack. Wish granted, the crocodile suddenly exploded out of the water attacking the impala in the briefest of moments.




Lions' long shot

Peering through the rain, Michael spotted a captivating site, two lions hot on the hooves of a fully-grown male giraffe. Unable to remain detached, the scene connected with Michael. ‘Something draws me to life and death struggles in nature. It’s raw and emotional and a rare privilege to witness.’




Killer tactics

George was freediving, watching this pod of killer whales stunning fish with their tails before eating them. Suddenly, the mood changed as the whales regrouped 50 metres away. ‘A minute later, they came back in full attack mode,’ recalls George. ‘It was the most powerful behaviour I have ever witnessed – an intense, life-changing experience.’

Terrific photos. Thanks for the effort in posting. Made the insomnia enjoyable for once.

Sweet Treat

An ordinary brown squirrel balances precariously while enjoying an orange stolen from photographer PhantomMenace, who had to temporarily abandon his pursuit of the elusive big-breasted thot, put on a pair of slippers, and trek twenty feet from his patio lugging a heavy DSLR with 200mm zoom to capture this image. After shooting the squirrel, the photographer shot the squirrel.

Not really, just kidding.

2015

A tale of two foxes

From a distance, Don could see that the red fox was chasing something across the snow.

As he got closer, he realised the prey, now dead, was an Arctic fox. For three hours in temperatures of -30 degrees Centigrade Don stayed at the scene, until the red fox, finally sated, picked up the eviscerated carcass and dragged it away to store for later. In the Canadian tundra, global warming is extending the range of red foxes northwards, where they increasingly cross paths with their smaller relatives, the Arctic fox. For Arctic foxes, red foxes now represent not just their main competitor – both hunt small animals such as lemmings – but also their main predator. Few actual kills by red foxes have been witnessed so far, but it is likely that conflicts between the two mammals will become more common.




Heaven on Earth

The giraffes arrived at the waterhole after sunset, and stopped to drink alongside a black rhino.




The scales of fortune

The elusive ground pangolin is the holy grail of safaris, so Tristan was thrilled to encounter one while out one evening.




The final leap

Wim had been following this leopard for three days as it tried to secure a meal.




Desert survivor

Flying over the desert dunes of northern Namibia in 2013, Sergey spotted many gemsbok – mostly dead, following the worst drought in the region for a generation.




Great egret awakening

When the River Danube flooded, this temporary lake attracted more than 1,000 great egrets.




Inside job

Charlie wanted to capture an African vulture feeding scrum from its centre, so he positioned a specially adapted camera inside multiple carcasses.




Turtle flight

As this hawksbill turtle swam past, David angled his camera to set its amber underside against the rich blue water.




Komodo judo

Two formidable Komodo dragons wrestle along the majestic coast of Komodo National Park.




Beetle beauty and the spiral of love

While searching for reptiles and amphibians on the slopes of the Tungurahua volcano, Javier came across this dazzling pair of jewel weevils.




A whale of a mouthful

An imposing Bryde’s whale rips through a mass of sardines, gulping hundreds in a single pass.




It came from the deep

At night in the Pacific Ocean, intriguing creatures migrate up from the depths to feed.

This juvenile octopus, for example, is just two centimetres across. ‘One of them stopped in front of me,’ says Fabien, ‘waving its tentacles gracefully’. Minding not to disturb it with a strong flash, Fabien captured the unseen world of this diminutive octopus. Transparent body tissues camouflage this tiny octopus. Along its arms are orange founder chromatophores – early stages of the pigment-containing cells that enable adult octopuses to change colour. The digestive gland and ink sac, in the main part of the body known as the mantle, are surrounded by reflective tissues, making them less visible too.




It came from the gloom

In the freezing cold waters of the Antarctic, Jordi had just five minutes to find subjects, before facing decompression or hypothermia.

He had time to capture this Atolla jellyfish – 15 centimetres across – lit by strobes in the dark. When a group of gentoo penguins zoomed across the frame, ‘I just managed to catch the last one,’ he says. When threatened, Atolla flash blue or release a bioluminescent secretion to distract predators while they escape, earning them the nickname alarm jellyfish. Usually found up to 4,000 metres down, their rich red colour helps to camouflage them in the dark.



The art of spiders

Vast blankets of shimmering spider silk were lit in the soft dawn light that bathed this roadside meadow.




A black bear looks in

When Connor spotted bear droppings on the track leading to his camera trap, his heart fell.




Raven strut

Pensive, misty and peaceful.




Night of the mountain goats

It was a clear, starry night, exactly what Connor had hoped for, with barely any moonlight.




Creekside nursery

The American dippers were working hard, delivering beakfuls of juicy invertebrates to their hungry-mouthed chicks.




By the light of the moon

Audun knew exactly when in autumn the brown trout congregate to spawn in this Arctic river.




Mama's back

Ashleigh spotted these fox cubs romping around outside her cabin, and tip-toed outside to photograph them.




A genet feat of a leap

Marc, his father and two friends began leaving food out each night hoping to entice genets to visit.

2013

2014 was weak, skipping to 2013


The water bear

The fact that most images of polar bears show them on land or ice says more about the practical difficulties faced by humans than it does about the bears' behaviour.




Surfing delight

Some scientists argue that dolphins don't play for the sheer fun of it in the way we humans do. What Wim observed that day off Port St Johns, South Africa, suggests otherwise.




On top of the world

Jérémie grew up on a farm in the countryside near Paris, France, and his childhood dream had been to climb mountains and see a wild Alpine ibex.




Essence of elephants

The shot was taken at a waterhole in Botswana’s Northern Tuli Game Reserve from a sunken hide. Greg used a slow shutter speed to create the atmosphere and ‘to depict these gentle giants in an almost ghostly way.’




Feast of the East

One of the wildlife feasts of the Russian Far East is the great salmon run.




True love

Northern gannets show impressive devotion to each other, pairing for life and returning to the same nest site each year to breed.




Feeding of the five thousand

Each autumn, thousands of great white pelicans on migration from Europe to Africa rest and refuel in Israel.




Life in the balance

When feeding, jays regularly scan the sky for danger, and at the slightest hint of a threat will let out a loud rasping alarm call. So when a pair of sparrowhawks started to frequent a feeding station in front of Pål's hide in Dalen, Norway, he didn't imagine they would catch a jay. What they did do, though, was bring their young for hunting practice. Time after time their attempts failed, but as the youngsters practised striking, Pål was able to practise his shooting skills.




Battle colours

He and his friend quickly paddled their canoe closer, and discovered two male green iguanas, in full breeding colours, locked in a violent battle. These dragon-like reptiles - up to two metres long - fight with razor-sharp teeth and whip-like tails during territorial disputes, and the action now was fierce and fast.




Cold-blooded killing

Out of the sea came a huge crocodile with a large green turtle in its mouth, which was flapping its flippers and opening and closing its eyes.




The spat

For several hours, the noisy sounds of courtship and mating were all Joe was treated to as he sat, sweltering in the hot sun, in a boat on the Three Brothers River in Brazil's Pantanal.




Feast of the ancient mariner

It looks like some kind of inflatable pool toy, but what this turtle is munching on is, in fact, a pyrosome: a free-floating colony of hundreds of thousands of tiny tunicates (filter-feeding zooids) wrapped in a gelatinous 'tunic'.




Lionfish bait

Here a lionfish is attacking a huge shoal of silversides and cardinalfish swirling in a huge baitball. 'The synchrony was mesmerising, but the scene was a real challenge to photograph,' says Alex.




Snow moment

When photographing the famous Japanese macaques around the hot springs of Jigokudani, central Japan, Jasper had become fascinated by the surreal effects created by the arrival of a cold wind.




The flight path

This female barred owl had a territory near Connor’s home in Burnaby, British Columbia.




Evening peace

On the nest, great northern divers can be nervous, so Connor waded into the lake closer every day, increasing this female’s trust.




Tiger untrapped

This picture of the endangered Amur, or Siberian, tiger is one of only a very few taken in the wild without the use of a camera trap.




Twin hope

The hike to the mountain gorillas was particularly arduous that day.




Survivors

Valeriy's aim was to encounter an Amur leopard, confident that, in his hide on a raised platform, he was safe and the leopard wouldn't feel threatened by him.




Last look

'I'll never forget looking into the leopard's eyes only a few metres away. My hands shook with excitement, and I had to will myself to calm down,' says Vladimir.




The fish trap

Whale sharks are the largest fish in the sea, but they are filter-feeders eating mostly plankton and small fish and, according to received wisdom, rarely interact with humans.




The stalker

But the most memorable moment was watching this wolverine slowly stalking along a branch, intent on getting rid of the magpie.



Mother's little headful

One night, Udayan camped near a nesting colony of gharials on the banks of the Chambal River – two groups of them, each with more than 100 hatchlings. Before daybreak, he hid behind rocks beside the babies.




Last light

Not one but four strokes of luck helped Mateusz fulfil his dream of photographing a long-eared owl.



Freeze frame

Etienne spotted this stoat, in its full winter colours, crossing a lane close to his home in Switzerland.

Here's a pic I took of a white rhino at AK lol.

Absolutely amazing pictures. I hate the man is destroying nature with his behavior.

I agree...amazing. made my meeting more tolerable while scrolling through.

If you'd have only made a caption like the ones above, it would've been perfect