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RE: Best wildlife photography of the year
10/19/2013 7:00:10 PM
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wow... these are really cool photos.. And the winners are... (a selection)
© Greg du Toit/ Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 (South Africa): Essence of elephants. Beating almost 43,000 other entries from across 96 countries, Greg's image will take center stage at the exhibition, opening at the Natural History Museum on 18 October.
© Udayan Rao Pawar/ Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013: Mother’s little headful. Fourteen-year-old photographer Udayan Rao Pawar has also been recognised as Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 for his image Mother's little headful. This presents an arresting scene of gharial crocodiles on the banks of the Chambal River in Madhya Pradesh, India, an area increasingly under threat from illegal sand mining and fishing.
 The flight path, © Connor Stefanison / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 (Canada). This female barred owl had a territory near his home in Burnaby, British Columbia. He watched her for some time, familiarising himself with her flight paths until he knew her well enough to set up the shot. "I wanted to include the western red cedar and the sword ferns so typical of this Pacific coastal rainforest." Setting up his camera near one of the owl's favourite perches, linked to a remote and three off-camera flashes, diffused and on low settings, he put a dead mouse on a platform above the camera and waited for the swoop that he knew would come.
Lucky pounce, © Connor Stefanison / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 (Canada). "Anticipating the pounce - that was the hardest part," says Connor, who had come to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA, in search of wildlife as much as the spectacular landscape. He had found this fox, his first ever, on his last day in the park. It was so absorbed in hunting that Connor had plenty of time to get out of the car and settle behind a rock. It quartered the grassland, back and forth, and then started staring intently at a patch of ground, giving Connor just enough warning of the action to come. When it sprung up, Connor got his shot. And when it landed, the fox got his mouse.
 Sticky situation, © Isak Pretorius / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 (South Africa). In May, the seafaring lesser noddies head for land to breed. Their arrival on the tiny island of Cousine in the Seychelles coincides with peak web size for the red-legged golden orb-web spiders. The female spiders, which can grow to the size of a hand, create colossal conjoined webs up to 1.5 metres in diameter in which the tiny males gather. These are woven from extremely strong silk and are suspended up to six metres above the ground, high enough to catch passing bats and birds, though it's flying insects that the spiders are after. Noddies regularly fly into the webs. Even if they struggle free, the silk clogs up their feathers so they can't fly.
 The spat, © Joe McDonald / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 (USA). For several hours, the noisy sounds of courtship and mating were all Joe was treated to as he sat, sweltering in the hot sun, in a boat on the Three Brothers River in Brazil's Pantanal. So when the female jaguar finally emerged from the undergrowth and walked down to the river to drink, Joe was grateful for the photo opportunity. But that was just a start. After slaking her thirst, the female flopped down on the sand. Then the male appeared. After drinking and scent-marking, he approached the female, who was lying in what appeared to be a pose of enticement. At least, that's what both Joe and the male thought. She rose, growled and suddenly charged, slamming the male back as he reared up to avoid her outstretched claws.
 Dive buddy, © Luis Javier Sandoval / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 (Mexico). The beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, near Cancún are traditional nesting sites for the endangered green turtle. But as Cancún has also grown as a holiday and dive resort, development has reduced the area available to turtles. Today, though, many nest sites are protected, there are turtle hatcheries to help numbers increase, and there is publicity to help local people and resort owners value the natural riches of the region. Luis earns enough from tourism photography to allow him time to document his beloved wildlife.
 Snow moment, © Jasper Doest / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 (The Netherlands). When photographing the famous Japanese macaques around the hot springs of Jigokudani, central Japan, Jasper had become fascinated by the surreal effects created by the arrival of a cold wind. Occasionally, a blast would blow through the steam rising off the pools. If it was snowing, the result would be a mesmerising pattern of swirling steam and snowflakes, which would whirl around any macaques warming up in the pools. But capturing the moment required total luck - for Jasper to be there when the wind blew and for the monkeys to be in the pool. For that luck to arrive, he had to wait another year. Returning the next winter, he determined to get the shot he'd been obsessing about. He set up using a polariser to remove reflections from the water and create a dark contrasting background, and got ready to use fill-flash to catch the snowflakes.
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