YOUNG WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2019

HIGHLY COMMENDED 10 YEARS AND UNDER TANISH RAY INDIA The vulture tree

Returning with his parents from an afternoon searching for tigers in Kanha Tiger Reserve in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, Tanish spotted this high-rise whiterumped vulture roost in a huge sal tree. The birds were resting after feeding, and a bad smell in the air indicated to Tanish that the carcass they had been scavenging was nearby. Vultures have a poor sense of smell and would have found the body by sight. The birds are part of nature’s cleanup system but their scavenging lifestyle has led to them becoming highly endangered through feeding on the carcasses of livestock dosed with the veterinary drug diclofenac, which causes kidney failure. Keen to fit all seven vultures into the frame, Tanish turned his camera vertically. Facing into the sun, he made the tree a silhouette, though with the vultures perched at different levels, the focus was a challenge. When he got home, he used a technique his father had recently taught him to convert the image to black and white – reflecting the spooky feeling that he’d had when he first saw the scene.

Canon EOS 550D + 55–250mm f4–5.6 lens at 55mm; 1/800 sec at f4; ISO 100.

HIGHLY COMMENDED 11-14 YEARS OLD BRANSON MEAKER SOUTH AFRICA The aquabatic antelope

Branson had spent hours trying to photograph red lechwe on the flooded plains of Botswana’s Kwando Reserve. But his task was made tricky as any noise, including the sound of his camera, would spook the shy antelopes. With powerful hind legs, noticeably higher than their forequarters, red lechwe are found in wetlands in south Central and Southern Africa, where they move effortlessly through kneehigh water with long, graceful leaps. Branson got his chance at sunset. From his position in the stationary open-top vehicle, he spotted a male (only males have horns) preparing to set off through the water. With his camera on a beanbag on the vehicle’s handrail, he was ready. Using a fast shutter speed, he caught the red lechwe mid-stride on its second bound – the perfect action shot he was after. Reviewing the image, he was delighted to discover a bonus: a pied kingfisher, unperturbed by the splashing, delicately perched on a grass stem.

Canon EOS 5D Mark lll + 100–400mm f4.5–5.6 lens at 400mm; 1/2000 sec at f8; ISO 2000.

WINNER 15-17 YEARS OLD RICCARDO MARCHGIANI ITALY Early riser

Riccardo could not believe his luck when, at first light, this female gelada, with a week-old infant clinging to her belly, climbed over the cliff edge close to where he was perched. He was with his father and a friend in Simien Mountains National Park to watch these grass-eating primates, which are found only on the Ethiopian Plateau. At night, the geladas would take refuge on the steep cliff-faces, huddling together on sleeping ledges, emerging at dawn to graze on the alpine grassland. On this day, a couple of hours before sunrise, Riccardo’s guide again led them to a cliff edge where the geladas were likely to emerge, giving him time to get into position before the primates woke up. He was in luck. After an hour’s wait, just before dawn, a group started to emerge not too far along the cliff. Moving position while keeping a respectful distance – and away from the edge – Riccardo was rewarded by this female, who climbed up almost in front of him. Shooting with a low flash to highlight her rich brown fur against the still-dark mountain range, he caught not only her sideways glance but also the eyes of her inquisitive infant.

Nikon D800E + 16–35mm f4 lens at 30mm; 1/60 sec at f8; ISO 100; Godox V860II-N flash.

HIGHLY COMMENDED 10 YEARS AND UNDER ALFONS LILJA SWEDEN Meadow beauty

Butterflies fascinate eight-yearold Alfons. During the summer months, when his family moves to a summerhouse by the sea in northeast Sweden, he goes looking for them in the surrounding meadows. On a warm summer’s day, he spotted this small butterfly flying close to the ground. When it paused to sip nectar from a goldenrod, and stayed still as clouds covered the sun, Alfons managed to creep up on it. Framing the butterfly to surround it with flowers, he set his camera to give a shallow depth of field to isolate the insect from the background. His image captured a view of the butterfly’s delicately patterned forewings, the soft light helping to bring out their rich colour. Accustomed to the quick and erratic movement of butterflies, Alfons says he was delighted to find one that stayed still long enough for him to photograph – and to identify later from his image as a small pearlbordered fritillary.

Nikon D500 + 300mm f4 lens; 1/640 sec at f6.3; ISO 400.

HIGHLY COMMENDED 15-17 YEARS OLD ARTHUR DE MAGALHÃES GOULART BRAZIL The art of feather-care

Perched on a pier beside wetland in the Brazilian Pantanal, an anhinga twists its long, slender neck to take oil from its preen gland before cleaning, preening and oiling its feathers. Arthur was eating his lunch nearby with his family during a trip to the wetland. Using a telephoto lens to isolate the bird from a distracting background, he framed his shot tightly, focusing on the anhinga using its bill to squeeze oil from the preen gland at the base of her tail. Unlike most aquatic birds, the anhinga does not have fully waterproof feathers. This allows its plumage to absorb water so it is heavy enough to submerge and hunt by stealth, either swimming underwater or with just its snake-like neck and head above the surface, earning it the name snakebird. Fish within reach are impaled with a lightning strike of its daggerlike bill. After a hunt, an anhinga will perch with a spread-wing posture, back to the sun, to dry off and warm up.

Nikon D7100 + 80–400mm f5.6 lens at 400mm; 1/640 sec at f5.6; ISO 360.

WINNER 11-14 YEARS OLD CRUZ ERDMANN NEW ZEALAND Night glow

Cruz was on an organised night dive in the Lembeh Strait off North Sulawesi, Indonesia, when he encountered a pair of bigfin reef squid, As he approached in relatively shallow water over a sand flat, the smaller cephalopod jetted away, but the other – probably the male – its iridescent body glowing in the dark, stayed hovering for a few seconds. Bigfin reef squid – so-called because of the muscular fins that extend along the length of their mantle (main body) – have special pigment-containing and light-reflecting cells, which enable them to change colour and pattern in an instant, both to disguise themselves and to communicate. Here the 25cmlong individual appears to be displaying striped courtship patterns, its internal reproductive organs glowing pink to further indicate its intentions. With no time to readjust his camera and strobe settings, Cruz instinctively composed his frame, capturing the glowing squid – its two tentacles extended – before it jetted backwards into the blackness, most likely to rejoin its potential mate.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III + 100mm f2.8 lens; 1/125 sec at f29; ISO 200; Aquatica 5D Mk II Pro housing; Ikelite DS161 strobe.

HIGHLY COMMENDED 15-17 YEARS OLD ARIEL FIELDS ISRAEL The Charm of Ruthy

It is rare to see a striped hyena – smaller than the spotted hyena, and a solitary feeder. But in the Israeli city of Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut, there is one young female who is well known. Every night, Ruthy enters the city to forage in bins for scraps. Not everyone is keen on her nightly habits. Twice she has been captured by the authorities and relocated, and each time she has made her way back to the city. Keen to persuade locals that young Ruthy is just a friendly scavenger and poses no danger, Ariel has spent many months observing her behaviour and routines. He is also keen to publicise the Near Threatened status of striped hyenas – the global population, from the Middle East, across to India and in Africa, may be fewer than 10,000. His intimate portrait of Ruthy, backlit by the warm evening light, was taken as she dozed – ears alert – near one of her many dens on the outskirts of the city. As dusk fell, Ariel watched her wake up and head off on her nightly rounds.

Nikon D500 + 200–500mm f5.6 lens at 500mm; 1/500 sec at f5.6 (-1 e/v); ISO 640.

WINNER 10 YEARS AND UNDER THOMAS EASTERBROOK UNITED KINGDOM Humming surprise

On holiday with his family in France, Thomas was eating supper in the garden on a warm summer’s evening when he heard humming. The sound was coming from the fast-beating wings of a hummingbird hawkmoth, hovering in front of an autumn sage, siphoning up nectar with its long proboscis. Its wings are reputed to beat faster than the hummingbirds that pollinate the plant in its native home of Mexico and Texas. With the moth moving quickly from flower to flower it was a challenge to frame a picture. But Thomas managed it, while capturing the stillness of the moth’s head against the blur of its wings.

Sony DSC-HX400V + 24–210mm f2.8–6.3 lens at 51mm; 1/320 sec at f5; ISO 80.

HIGHLY COMMENDED 10 YEARS AND UNDER SOUMIL RATHI INDIA Great cormorant dry-off

The white-breasted cormorant was warming up in the sun, its wings outstretched, perched on the end of a jetty in Kenya’s Lake Naivasha. Soumil approached in a swaying rowing boat with his family. He tried to get a shot of the bird while holding the camera steady and avoiding any human arms or heads in the frame, and succeeded. Soumil took a sharp image highlighting the cormorant’s glossy bronze upperwing feathers and its distinctive green eye.

The whitebreasted cormorant is considered to be a subspecies of the great cormorant. It is a shallowwater diver in fresh water, chasing fish or other creatures by propelling itself with its large webbed feet and then gliding with its wings held tightly folded against its body, and using its tail to manoeuvre. Back on land it dries off facing into the wind or the sun, revealing wings large and powerful enough to lift it out of the water when wet.

Canon EOS 700D + 250mm f4–5.6 lens; 1/320 sec at f7.1; ISO 100.

HIGHLY COMMENDED 11-14 YEARS OLD CARLOS PÉREZ NAVAL SPAIN Canopy hangout

When Carlos’s family planned a trip to Panama’s Soberanía National Park, sloths were high on their must-see agenda. They were not disappointed. For several days, from the observation deck of the park’s canopy tower, Carlos could photograph not only birds but also this brown-throated three-toed sloth – the orange fur and the dark stripe on its back marking it as an adult male. It hung out in a cecropia tree, resting but occasionally moving, slowly, along a branch to reach new leaves. On this morning, with the forest cloaked in fog and the sloth on the move, Carlos decided on a new composition. Climbing down, he shot from a lower level but at an angle that would still show the sloth’s key features – its three hooked claws clamped to the branch, its characteristic mask-like eye-stripe and its long, coarse fur. But by deliberately placing it in one part of the frame, he also captured the atmosphere of the forest – the sloth in its environment.

Nikon D700 + 28–300mm f3.5–5.6 lens at 45mm; 1/125 sec at f10; ISO 1600.

HIGHLY COMMENDED 11-14 YEARS OLD TAMÁS KONCZ-BISTRICZ HUNGARY One foggy night

Tamás set out with his dad to try to photograph deer in the forest near his home in southern Hungary in late November. But shortly after they entered the forest, a dense fog descended. They could hear the trumpeting calls of common cranes on a migration stopoff, but they didn’t reach them before the birds had left and it had started to get too dark for photography. But on their way back, Tamás noticed that an oak tree he had passed many times before had taken on a new form in the fog, its bare branches making a ghostly silhouette against the dusk sky. Intrigued by the effect a flash of light might have on the foggy scene, Tamás experimented using his camera’s built-in flash. It worked. The fog transformed into a blizzard of water droplets, creating a picture that reflected the creepy, mysterious feeling of the evening.

Nikon COOLPIX P900; 1/30 sec at f2.8; ISO 400; builtin flash; Manfrotto tripod.