WILD SIDE OF LIFE
The winners of the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition will be revealed in October. Here, we bring you a sneakpeak of what to expect with a selection of the Highly Commended photographs showcasing the talent of these photographers capturing the wonder of the natural world.
TOUCHING TRUST by Thomas P Peschak, Germany/South Africa. Highly Commended; Wildlife photojournalism
A young grey whale approaches hands reaching down from a tourist boat. In San Ignacio Lagoon, on the coast of Mexico’s Baja California, baby grey whales and their mothers actively seek contact with people for a head scratch. The lagoon is one of three that comprise a grey whale nursery and sanctuary – a key winter breeding ground for this surviving breeding population of grey whales, the eastern North Pacific ones. Whaling left the western population near extinction. Persecution may also have led to the whales’ aggression towards boats. But in the ’70s, a whale approached a fisherman who touched it. The trust between whales and humans built up.
BIG CAT AND DOG SPAT by Peter Haygarth, UK. Highly Commended; Behaviour: mammals
In a rare encounter, a lone male cheetah is set upon by a pack of African wilddogs. Both species have disappeared from much of their former ranges, with fewer than 7 000 left of each. The dogs hunted a warthog in Zimanga Private Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, when the cheetah interfered – and had to flee.
BEACH WASTE by Matthew Ware, US. Highly Commended; Wildlife photojournalism.
The beach scene at Alabama’s Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge looked appealing: blue sky, soft sand and a highly endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle. But then the fatal noose around the turtle’s neck attached to the washed-up beach chair became apparent. The Kemp’s ridley is one of the smallest sea turtles: just 65cm long.
A hippo, just days old, was keeping close to its mother in Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe, when a large bull suddenly made a beeline for them. He chased the mother, then seized the calf in his huge gape, clearly intent on killing it. After trying to drown it, he tried to crush it to death. All the while, the distraught mother looked on. Infanticide among hippos is rare but may result from the stress caused through overcrowding when their day-resting pools dry out. A male may also increase his reproductive chances by killing young that are not his.
JELLY BABY by Fabien Michenet, France. Highly Commended; Under water.
A juvenile jackfish peers out from inside a small jellyfish off Tahiti in French Polynesia. With nowhere to hide in the open ocean, it has adopted the jelly as an overnight travelling shelter.
LUCKY BREAK by Jason Bantle, Canada. Highly Commended; Urban life
An raccoon in a ’70s Ford Pinto on a deserted farm in Saskatchewan, Canada. The only access was the small hole in the cracked windscreen.
COOL DRINK by Diana Rebman, US. Highly commended; Behaviour: birds.
On a cold morning on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, Diana came across a flock of long-tailed tits and marsh tits gathered around an icicle hanging from a branch, taking turns to nibble the tip. Here, a Hokkaido long-tailed tit hovers for a split second to nip off a beakful. If the sun came out and a drop of water formed, the tit next ‘in line’ would sip rather than nip. The rotation was so fast-moving that it almost seemed choreographed. CIRCLE OF LIFE by Alex Mustard, UK. Highly Commended; Black and White.
In the clear water of the Red Sea, a shoal of bigeye trevally circle 25m down at the edge of the reef. For the past 20 years Alex has travelled here, to Ras Mohammad – a national park at the tip of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula – to photograph the summer-spawning aggregations of reef fish. ‘The big lure is that I always see something new,’ he says. This time, it was the high numbers of bigeye trevally. Their circling behaviour is a dating exercise prior to pairing up, though it also deters predators. Spawning gatherings like this are easily fished out – but not here, as the national park is a no-fishing marine reserve. IF PENGUINS COULD FLY by Eduardo Del lamo, Spain. Highly Commended; Behaviour: mammals
A gentoo penguin – the fastest underwater swimmer of all penguins – flees for its life as a leopard seal bursts out of the water. Eduardo spotted the penguin resting on a fragment of broken ice. But he had also seen the leopard seal patrolling off the Antarctic Peninsula coast, close to the gentoo’s colony on Cuverville Island. As Eduardo’s inflatable headed towards the penguin, the seal passed directly beneath the boat. Moments later, it surged out of the water. The penguin made it off the ice, but the seal ‘played’ the penguin for more than 15 minutes before finally catching it. THE CLIMBING DEAD by Frank Deschandol. Highly Commended; Plants and fungi.
On a night-time fieldtrip in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, Frank spotted this weevil clinging to a fern stem. Its glazed eyes showed it was dead, and the three antennae-like projections growing out of its thorax were the ripe fruiting bodies of a ‘zombie fungus’. Spreading inside the weevil while it was alive, the fungus had taken control of its muscles and compelled it to climb. When it was at a suitable height – for the fungus – the weevil held fast to the stem. Fuelled by the weevil’s insides, the fungus then started to grow fruiting bodies topped by capsules.