{"id":42509,"date":"2024-10-09T00:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cd3cecfe-d959-4611-80ec-aa23fdadd51f"},"modified":"2024-10-09T01:27:28","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T23:27:28","slug":"wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2024-magical-underwater-world-takes-gold","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2024-magical-underwater-world-takes-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024: magical underwater world takes gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enjoy a selection of winning images from the renowned Natural History Museum competition, now in its 60th year. <\/p>

By <\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 09 October 2024 at 22:30 PM<\/p>

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The winners of the Natural History Museum’s prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/a> competition have been revealed<\/strong>.<\/p>

Canadian Marine Conservation Photojournalist Shane Gross clinched top spot for his image \u2018The Swarm of Life\u2019, a captivating photo that shines a light on the magical underwater world of western toad tadpoles.<\/p>

The Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024 was awarded to Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas from Germany for his image \u2018Life Under Dead Wood\u2019, which shows a tiny springtail stood beside the fruiting bodies of slime mould.<\/p>

Discover more award-winning images \u2013 and the stories behind them \u2013 from this year’s competition.<\/p>

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024 winners<\/h2>
‘Life under dead wood’\u00a0by Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas (Winner: 15-17 Years). Tinker-Tsavalas rolls a log over to see the fruiting bodies of slime mould and a tiny springtail.\u00a0Tinker-Tsavalas worked fast to take this photograph, as springtails can jump many times their body length in a split second. He used a technique called focus stacking, where 36 images, each with a different area in focus, are combined.\u00a0Springtails are barely two millimetres long (less than a tenth of an inch). They are found alongside slime moulds and leaf litter all over the world. They feed on microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi, improving soil by helping organic matter to decompose\/Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Matthew
‘Under the waterline’ by Matthew Smith (Winner: Underwater). To capture this split image of a curious leopard seal beneath the Arctic ice, Matthew used a specially designed extension on the front of his underwater housing. It was his first encounter with a leopard seal and this young individual in Paradise Bay, Antarctica, made several close passes. \u201cWhen it looked straight into the lens barrel, I knew I had something good, Matthew recalls. Though leopard seals are widespread and abundant, overfishing, retreating sea ice and warming waters mean that krill and penguins \u2013 their main food sources \u2013 are both in decline\/Matthew Smith, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Karine
‘Wetland wrestle’ by Karine Aigner (Winner: Behaviour, Amphibians and Reptiles). The tour group Karine was leading had stopped to photograph some marsh deer when she noticed an odd shape floating in the water. Through binoculars she quickly recognised that it was a yellow anaconda coiled around the snout of a yacar\u00e9 caiman. While caimans are generalist feeders and will eat snakes, as anacondas get larger, they will include reptiles in their diet, so it\u2019s hard to determine who is the aggressor here. On the snake\u2019s back are two tabanids, blood-sucking horseflies that are known to target reptiles\/Karine Aigner, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Parham
‘An evening meal’ by Parham Pourahmad (Winner: 11-14 Years). The last rays of the setting sun illuminate a young Cooper\u2019s hawk eating a squirrel. Over a single summer, Parham visited Ed R Levin County Park in California most weekends to take photographs. He wanted to showcase the variety of wildlife living within a busy metropolitan city, and to illustrate that \u201cnature will always be wild and unpredictable\u201d. Cooper\u2019s hawk inhabits woodlands as well as urban spaces, where there are tall trees to nest in and birdfeeders that attract smaller birds, which they can prey on\/Parham Pourahmad, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Jiri
‘The artful crow’ by Jiri Hrebicek (Winner: Natural Artistry). Ji\u0159\u00ed often visits his local park in Basel, Switzerland, as it\u2019s an ideal place to experiment with camera techniques. To create this painterly, impressionistic vision of a perching carrion crow, he deliberately moved his camera in different directions, while using a longer shutter speed. Carrion crows are intelligent birds that have successfully adapted to living alongside humans, with gardens and parks providing a regular food supply. In Switzerland they are found north of the Alps, with some of the highest concentrations around Basel\/Jiri Hrebicek, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Hikkaduwa
‘A tranquil moment’ by Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod (Winner: Behaviour, Mammals). Resting in a quiet place after a morning of photographing birds and leopards, Vinod soon realised he wasn\u2019t alone. A troop of toque macaques was moving through the trees above in Wilpattu National Park, Sri Lanka. Vinod spotted this young monkey sleeping between feeds and used his telephoto lens to frame the peaceful moment. Toque macaques easily adapt to human foods, and the encroachment of plantations into their habitat has seen an increase in incidents of shooting, snaring and poisoning by farmers trying to preserve their crops\/Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Ingo
‘The demolition squad’ by Ingo Arndt (Winner: Behaviour, Invertebrates). \u201cFull of ants\u201d is how Ingo described himself after lying next to the nest of this colony for just a few minutes. He watched as the red wood ants carved an already dead beetle into pieces small enough to fit through the nest entrance. Much of the red wood ants\u2019 nourishment comes from honeydew secreted by aphids, but they also need protein. They are capable of killing insects and other invertebrates much larger than themselves through sheer strength in numbers\/Ingo Arndt, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Stage
‘Rubies and gold’ by Sage Ono (Winner: Rising Star Portfolio Award). The eggs of the tube-snout fish sparkle like gems next to the kelp\u2019s gold, glowing, gas-filled buoyancy aids. This image belongs to Sage\u2019s winning portfolio exploring life around the giant kelp forests in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, California. Inspired by the stories told by his grandfather, a retired marine biologist, and by a photograph of a larval cusk eel, Sage decided to take up underwater photography and moved to the coast to pursue his interest\/Sage Ono, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"John
‘On watch’ by John Marriott (Winner: Animal Portrait). John had been tracking this lynx family through Yukon, Canada, for almost a week when he photographed a parent resting with its fully grown young sheltering behind. He wore snowshoes and carried light camera gear to make his way through snowy forests, and kept his distance to make sure he didn\u2019t disturb them. Lynx numbers usually reflect the natural population fluctuations of their main prey species, the snowshoe hare. With climate change reducing snow coverage, giving other predators more opportunities to hunt the hares, their numbers may decline, in turn affecting the lynx\/John Marriott, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Jack
‘Practice makes perfect’ by Jack Zhi (Winner: Behaviour, Birds). Flying above its sea-cliff nest in Los Angeles, California, a young falcon practises its hunting skills on a butterfly. Jack had been visiting the area for the past eight years, observing the constant presence of one falcon and photographing the chicks. On this particular day it was a challenge to track the action because the birds were moving so fast. Tests have shown that adult falcons are capable of stooping \u2013 dropping down on their prey from above \u2013 at speeds of more than 300km per hour\/Jack Zhi, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Fortunato
‘Old man of the glen’ by Fortunato Gatto (Winner: Plants and Fungi). A gnarled old birch tree adorned with pale \u2018old man\u2019s beard\u2019 lichens in Glen Affric. Fortunato often visits these ancient pinewoods in the Scottish Highlands alone to lose himself in their intricate, chaotic, timeless beauty. The presence of the lichens indicates that it\u2019s an area of minimal air pollution. Glen Affric is home to the highest concentration of native trees in the UK and analysis of pollen preserved in the layered sediments shows the forest has stood here for at least 8,300 years\/Fortunato Gatto, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Alberto
‘Free as a bird’ by Alberto Rom\u00e1n G\u00f3mez Hombre (Winner: 10 Years and Under). Alberto took this image that contrasts a delicate stonechat with a hefty chain from the window of his father\u2019s car at the edge of Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park in C\u00e1diz. It was quite tricky to capture as the young bird was quickly flying back and forth, gathering insects. To Alberto, the stonechat displayed a sense of ownership, as if it were a guardian overseeing its territory. This young bird has not yet developed its adult call, which sounds like two stones tapped together. Stonechats tend to prefer open habitats and typically perch on fences\/Alberto Rom\u00e1n G\u00f3mez Hombre, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Shane
‘The swarm of life’ by Shane Gross (Winner: Grand Title | Winner: Wetlands, The Bigger Picture). An underwater view of a mass of western toad tadpoles swimming beneath lilypads. Shane spent several hours snorkelling in Cedar Lake on Vancouver Island, careful to prevent any disturbance to the fine layers of silt and algae on the bottom, which would have reduced visibility. The tadpoles are moving up to the shallows to feed. They will start to become toads between one and three months after hatching, though about 90 per cent will not survive to adulthood\/Shane Gross, Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.<\/p>

More wildlife stories form around the world<\/strong><\/p>