Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest is underway. Run by London’s Natural History Museum, the annual worldwide competitors is without doubt one of the most revered in nature pictures. This week, the museum unveiled 15 of this yr’s “highly commended” entries. 

As all the time, these photographs present our typically difficult relationship with nature and the rising results of local weather change, rising populations, and altering landscapes. No Place Like Home, shot by Emmanuel Tardy, exhibits a heartbreaking sight from Costa Rica. A brown-throated three-toed sloth can be seen clutching a barbed-wire fence, a determined stand-in for its lacking bushes.

Further highlighting the affect of people on wildlife, Lakshitha Karunarathna’s aerial photograph Toxic Tip exhibits a solitary Asian elephant selecting by way of a sea of plastic at a waste-disposal web site in Sri Lanka.

A daunting first step

Meanwhile, after watching the colony for 2 months, Bertie Gregory managed to snap a gaggle of fledgling emperor penguins nervously waddling towards the sting of an Antarctic ice shelf, preparing to take their scary first leap into an ice-choked ocean lead. 

In Tanzania’s Serengeti, Gabriella Comi’s Wake-up Call captures the second two lethal adversaries come nose to nose.  She watched as a cobra slithered right into a sleeping pleasure of lions. Almost instantly, one of many massive cats was face-to-face with the toxic snake. 

Other photos embrace Nature Reclaims Its Space by Sitaram Raul. Raul caught the dramatic exodus of fruit bats from a dilapidated historic monument in Maharashtra, India. On the opposite aspect of the globe, Ralph Pace was slathering petroleum jelly on the one sections of his physique not coated by a wetsuit in order that he may {photograph} jellyfish. Jelly Smack Summer paperwork a “smack” of Pacific sea nettles off California’s coast.

Macro shot of a micro ‘forest’

Elsewhere, Kutub Uddin’s Slime Family Portrait zooms right into a West Sussex woodland to seize slime mildew. Only a couple of millimeters extensive, the group of single-celled organisms appears to be like like tiny blueberries sitting atop stalks. Also within the UK, Jamie Smart photographed a crimson deer stag bellowing for feminine consideration close to Leicester.

The remainder of the 15 photographs present equally breathtaking moments from all corners of the globe, all capturing a uncommon second in nature.  A record-breaking 60,636 photographs had been submitted this yr, and the successful photos can be introduced on October 14. 

These 15 photos will be among the many last 100 proven in an exhibition on the Natural History Museum. It will open simply days after the winners are introduced, then finally head out on a world tour.