Call of the wildebeest photo snaps up top prize
From left, clockwise, cheetah about to pounce on a terrified gazelle, lineated barbet drills a nest, two hoopoes, a brown hare and a kingfisher
A WILDEBEEST takes a leap of faith into a crocodile-infested river as it plucks up courage, along with around 10,000 others, to escape lions waiting for stragglers.
This stunning shot by a British photographer has won the Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers Nature In Action contest. Winner Andy Howe, from Suffolk, said the picture was taken during the Great Migration in Kenya’s Masai Mara Reserve.
Throngs of wildebeest, zebra and topi amass on the banks of the Mara river, building up their courage, energy, and motivation.
Andy said: “Desperately they pour into the river like lemmings, leaping, bleating in a crescendo of adrenaline and instinct.”
The cruelty of nature is also highlighted in a highly commended shot by Norwegian Bjoern Stuedal, also from the Masai Mara.
A cheetah looks on almost casually as it closes in on a terrified baby gazelle. And a shot of a running hare in Cambridgeshire got Kevin Pigney highly commended.
Paul Smith came third with a kingfisher and rudd fish on the River Alde in Suffolk.
Another of his, two hoopoes sharing food in Hungary, was highly commended. And Nafis Ameen’s picture of a lineated barbet drilling a nest from the inside in Bangladesh was also highly commended.