Categories: Photography

Chilling second polar bear gazes down at prey amongst 16 unbelievable photos from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards

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A wide ranging scene of a polar bear peering into an ice gap is without doubt one of the shortlisted photos for the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competitors.

After recognizing tracks close to a gap in Arctic sea ice north of Svalbard, Norwegian photographer Audun Rikardsen arrange a motion-sensor underwater digicam. It took eight hours to lastly seize the second a polar bear gazed down seeking prey. The picture, titled Icy Window, has been awarded Highly Commended within the Animal Portraits class within the competitors’s 62nd 12 months.

The general winners of the competitors will probably be introduced at a ceremony hosted by Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin on Tuesday 13 October 2026, which will probably be out there to observe stay on the Natural History Museum’s YouTube channel.

An exhibition of the winning photographs will open on the museum on Friday 16 October 2026.

Other counseled photos this 12 months embody a black bear going for a dip in a Californian swimming pool, an grownup orca making an attempt to revive its calf and a mosquito consuming a extremely venomous viper’s blood.

“Every year I think the entries to our competition can’t get any stronger – and every year I’m proven wrong!” says Kathy Moran, chair of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Jury.

“Selected from a record-breaking 65,403 images, this preview presents just a small insight into the 100 incredible images in store for visitors to our exhibition. These images pave the way for a deepened appreciation and commitment to our natural world.”

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 photos

Up a Tree with no Squirrel by Allegra Hutton
Highly Commended, Behaviour: Mammals 

Allegra Hutton watches a younger leopard chase a squirrel up a tree in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Allegra had already watched the leopard attempt – and fail – to stalk a rabbit. The squirrel additionally prevented the leopard’s clumsy manoeuvres, ultimately ascending too excessive for the leopard to comply with. By then, the cat may barely cling on. An awkward backward retreat ensued.  – Allegra Hutton / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Biting Back by Andrea and Maceo Grammatico
Highly Commended, Animal Portraits 

Twins Andrea and Maceo describe this picture as ‘one of the most demanding focus stacks we’ve ever created’. But it wasn’t till they reviewed their pictures that they observed the mosquito on the fer-de-lance’s head. It is a extremely venomous viper that’s liable for the best variety of deadly snake bites in Central America. – Andrea and Maceo Grammatico / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Wings of Darkness by Andrew Parkinson
Highly Commended, Animal Portraits 

Andrew Parkinson noticed a black vulture over the carcass of a yacaré caiman within the Pantanal wetlands’s Waters State Park (in Brazil) and used a protracted telephoto lens to seize the second. Out of body, a jaguar waited to retrieve the caiman from the water. – Andrew Parkinson / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Flock of Gold by Bence Máté
Highly Commended, Behaviour: Birds 

‘You could feel the rush of air from tens of thousands of wings beating in unison, even from 30 metres (98 feet) away,’ says Máté. This picture of a flock of red-billed queleas was captured within the golden gentle of a late afternoon, in Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park. – Bence Máté / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Eye of the Storm by Dewald Tromp
Highly Commended, Animals of their Environment 

A storm picked up as Dewald was photographing this Namaqua chameleon within the Namib Desert. It quickly grew to become tough to breathe and ‘in a matter of seconds, you could hardly see the person next to you’, Dewald recollects.   – Dewald Tromp / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Mutual Friends by Ernest Porter
Highly Commended, Behaviour: Birds 

While looking for wildlife within the Manyeleti Game Reserve (in Mpumalanga, South Africa), Ernest witnessed a gaggle of white rhinos with red-billed oxpeckers feeding on the bugs that infest their pores and skin. – Ernest Porter / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Hidden Dragon by Gil Wizen
Highly Commended, Behaviour: Invertebrates 

At solely 15 millimetres lengthy, this lichen dragon katydid (a nocturnal insect) wasn’t straightforward to seek out. Luckily, Wizen was in a position to spot it when it moved ever so barely. – Gil Wizen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The Art of Flying by Jack Crockford
Highly Commended, 15–17 Years 

Jack noticed swifts flying overhead close to London’s Heathrow Airport, finishing their yearly migration from southern Africa. While most have been flying too excessive to {photograph}, the occasional low-flyer allowed Crockford to seize the composition he’d been hoping for. – Jack Crockford / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Split-Second Escape by Jens Cullmann
Highly Commended, Behaviour: Amphibians and Reptiles 

Cullmann observed tadpoles on a earlier go to to Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve after heavy rains and returned the next month to seek out ponds and puddles filled with younger bullfrogs. He spent greater than two weeks watching the younger frogs ‘eat everything that moved’. Here, he captures a detailed name. – Jens Cullmann / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Pooltime Pastime by Loren Elliott
Highly Commended, Urban Wildlife 

A black bear cools off by taking a dip in a yard swimming pool behind a house nestled towards the San Gabriel Mountains in Monrovia, California. ‘I most like how it shows the very common overlap of wildlife and residential living in Los Angeles County,’ Eliot says. – Loren Elliott / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The Show Goes On by Pietro Rojas
Highly Commended, Photojournalism 

Many nations around the globe have banned animals from circus performances, however when Rojas observed {that a} circus with animal acts was coming to Doha (Qatar’s capital metropolis), he determined to doc it. He defined that ‘the contrast between the wild nature of the animal and the human environment imposed upon it’ stood out to him on this picture. – Pietro Rojas / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Ocean Protector by Ralph Pace
Highly Commended, Wetlands: The Bigger Picture 

In the shallows of Monterey Bay on the Pacific coast of the USA, Pace captured a glimpse of a sea hare gliding by means of an eelgrass meadow. – Ralph Pace / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Calm Amid the Storm by Shane Gross
Highly Commended, Oceans: The Bigger Picture 

A faculty of bigeye trevally swim at daybreak as a storm approaches D’Arros Island within the Seychelles. In order to attain the break up shot, Gross flipped the digicam the other way up to assist buoyancy distribution and adjusted his place, slowly approaching the curious college.  – Shane Gross / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Urban Wanderer by Sora Miyazawa, Japan 
Highly Commended, 11-14 Years 

Miyazawa chanced upon this Eastern Japanese toad in the course of Tokyo. With a sluggish shutter velocity, he composed the picture earlier than the toad hopped again into the bushes from the place it had emerged. – Sora Miyazawa / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Lifted to the Surface by Vegard Byrkjeland Aasen
Highly Commended, Behaviour: Mammals 

Aasen had simply launched a drone to doc sightings for the Norwegian Orca Survey when one thing caught his consideration – an grownup orca carrying a deceased calf, often dropping it after which retrieving it because it sank. Cetacean moms have been recognized to make use of their heads to elevate calves to the floor to allow them to breathe, doubtlessly suggesting that the mom may have been attempting to revive its calf. – Vegard Byrkjeland Aasen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.


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