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The annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition finds the very best wildlife images taken by the world’s top professional and amateur photographers.
Antoni Kasprzak (Poland)
Clash of eagles
‘Photographing in Poland, I found a dead moose that would be ideal bait. Five hours later, an adult and an immature white-tailed eagle arrived together, and a struggle broke out. The older, more experienced bird won, forcing the immature eagle to wait its turn for more than an hour, along with other scavengers.’ White-tailed eagles are the largest eagles in northern Europe, with a wingspan of more than two metres. Mature birds have a yellow beak, while the juveniles are a darker brown. Eagles will swoop and catch fish, but will also feed on carrion. When winter is particularly cold, and food is scare, fights over food break out.
Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF500mm f4 IS USM lens; 1/1000 sec at f4.5; ISO 500; tripod.
Miguel Lasa (United Kingdom)
Polar sunrise
‘So many of the photographs I’d seen of polar bears failed to show the power of the animals or any sense of the harshness of the polar environment. While the bears paced the beach waiting for the ice, I waited for the perfect light. Finally I got the shot I was after - a bear backlit by the first rays of sunlight.’ During winter, polar bears live on the frozen seas of the Arctic. In summer, in areas where the ice melts completely like Canada’s Hudson Bay, they spend months ashore living on a variety of foods. They will also swim in the water and catch birds. By the time the seas freeze again in autumn they are eager for fresh seal-meat.
Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF500mm f4 IS USM lens; 1/1250 sec at f4 (+2/3 compensation); ISO 400.
Yongkang Zhu (China) Snow swans
‘To photograph the swans in their environment meant I had to endure the same conditions - snowstorms and high winds that roll the snow across the flat land in great waves. The storm was so bitter I wished I could have escaped along with the swans.’ Every winter, huge flocks of whooper swans migrate from the far north of Europe and Asia to warmer lowlands. The Rongcheng Swan Lake nature reserve in eastern China is a major overwintering sanctuary for whooper swans. But even here, when the fresh water freezes, the birds are forced to feed in the fields, digging through the snow for grass.
Canon EOS 20D + Sigma 300-800mm f5.6 lens at 300mm; 1/1250 sec at f6.3; ISO 200; tripod.
Brian Skerry (United States of America) Underworld
‘A blue cod was taking a stroll on its fins through an otherworldly garden of vibrantly coloured sea pens and starfish. Through careful use of flash, I brought them to light. Fragile marine areas such as this one still exist in New Zealand waters thanks to federal protection.’ Sea pens are usually found in deep water, at depths between 10 and 2,000 metres. But in the shallow waters of Long Sound Marine Reserve in New Zealand, tannin-stained surface water blocks out sunlight, tricking sea pens into settling at shallower depths. Sea pen colonies orientate themselves in the path of the currents, to ensure a steady flow of food particles.
Nikon D2x + 16mm lens; 1/30 sec at f9; ISO 200; Subal housing; two Hartenberger strobes on 1/4 power, additional strobe used to light more distant subjects.
Stefano Unterthiner (Italy) Troublemaker
‘I nicknamed this young adult Troublemaker. He was interested in me, so getting a close-up wasn’t difficult. But he would leap at me and kick off my back like a trampoline. It was part play, part confrontation, part attention-seeking, part curiosity. I think Troublemaker’s expression captures the spirit of these wonderful monkeys.’ Black-crested macaques live on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. They usually forage in the forests, but sometimes their search for food takes them to the edge of the trees to the coast. They wander along the beach scouring the rocks for fallen fruits and nuts or, in the case of the young ones, paddling in the waves.
Nikon D2X + Nikon 12-24mm lens; 1/250 sec at f10; ISO 125; graduated neutral-density filter; flash.
Brian Skerry (United States of America) Sea of life
‘The wrasse moved through a school of blue maomao in a swirl of energy and colour. This is how I imagine the oceans may have looked hundreds of years ago - before overfishing depleted stocks. I wanted specifically to take a picture that celebrated the abundance of healthy marine ecosystems.’ The ocean around the Poor Knights Islands in New Zealand became a fully protected marine reserve in 1998. A monitoring programme has shown that full protection has led to a huge increase in the number of fish in the area. The rapid increase in fish populations is a comforting sign that sometimes the ocean’s wildlife can recover quickly just by being left alone.
Nikon D2x + 16mm lens; 1/8 sec at f13; ISO 200; Subal housing; two Hartenberger strobes on 1/4 power.
