Cuban bullfinch

[DawgHammarskjold]

A cage holding a Cuban bullfinch hangs alongside a road, so that the bird becomes accustomed to the hubbub of street life and is therefore less likely to be distracted during a singing competition. “The pictures make it real,” says Karine Aigner of her Photojournalist Story Award-winning shots of captive songbirds in Cuba. With this assignment, Aigner says she wanted to make people think about the way we exploit wild animals for our wants and desires. “When you look at these photos, and you see how it really is, the smallness of the cages, you get a stronger sense of the reality for these animals,” she says.© Photograph By Karine Aigner, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

 

[DawgHammarskjold]

A buzzing ball of cactus bees spins over the hot sand. After a few minutes, the pair at the ball's center—a male clinging to the only female in the scrum—flew away to mate.© Photograph By Karine Aigner, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

 

[DawgHammarskjold]

“You will be missed.” These are the words photographer Brent Stirton had for Ndakasi, an orphaned mountain gorilla, after her death in 2021. “If I could speak to her, I would say it was one of the saddest moments I’ve had in my career to witness your passing,” says Stirton, who won the Photojournalism category.© Photograph By Brent Stirton, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

 

[DawgHammarskjold]

It’s tough to tell where Earth ends and the heavens begin in this winner of the Natural Artistry category by Japan-based photographer Junji Takasago. Taken in the world’s largest salt pan, located in Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, this photograph shows an ecosystem under severe pressure from lithium mining.© Photograph by Junji Takasago, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

 

[DawgHammarskjold]

This year’s winner of the Animal Portrait’s category goes to José Juan Hernández Martinez of Spain for his depiction of a male Canary Islands houbara and its courtship dance. The photographer says he had to dig into the sand to get down to the fanciful bird’s level.© Photograph By José Juan Hernández Martinez, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

 

[DawgHammarskjold]

This year’s winner in the category of amphibian and reptile behavior belongs to Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar, who captured a Yucatan rat snake with a mouth full of bat. This kind of predation is common enough in the Mexico’s Cave of the Hanging Snakes, but being able to capture the behavior in low light and at a second’s notice before the snake retreated into its hole are what makes this shot unique.© Photograph By Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

 

[Eastmandawg]

This year’s winner in the category of amphibian and reptile behavior belongs to Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar, who captured a Yucatan rat snake with a mouth full of bat. This kind of predation is common enough in the Mexico’s Cave of the Hanging Snakes, but being able to capture the behavior in low light and at a second’s notice before the snake retreated into its hole are what makes this shot unique.© Photograph By Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Spooky…