Wildlife photographer of the year 2020

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is now in its fifty-sixth year. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. This year's competition attracted over 49,000 entries from professionals and amateurs from across the world. Here are some of the best shots from this year’s competition.

The Embrace

Sergey Gorshkov, Russia

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Animals in their Environment, Grand title winner

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “With an expression of sheer ecstasy, a tigress hugs an ancient Manchurian fir, rubbing her cheek against bark to leave secretions from her scent glands. She is an Amur, or Siberian, tiger, here in the Land of the Leopard National Park, in the Russian Far East. The race – now regarded as the same subspecies as the Bengal tiger – is found only in this region, with a small number surviving over the border in China and possibly a few in North Korea. Hunted almost to extinction in the past century, the population is still threatened by poaching and logging, which also impacts their prey – mostly deer and wild boar, which are also hunted. But recent (unpublished) camera‑trap surveys indicate that greater protection may have resulted in a population of possibly 500–600 – an increase that it is hoped a future formal census may confirm. Low prey densities mean that tiger territories are huge. Sergey knew his chances were slim but was determined to take a picture of the totem animal of his Siberian homeland. Scouring the forest for signs, focusing on trees along regular routes where tigers might have left messages – scent, hairs, urine or scratch marks – he installed his first proper camera trap in January 2019, opposite this grand fir. But it was not until November that he achieved the picture he had planned for, of a magnificent tigress in her Siberian forest environment.”

Nikon Z-7 + 50mm f1.8 lens; 1/200 sec at f6.3; ISO 250; Cognisys camera-trap system.

The fox that got the goose

Liina Heikkinen, Finland

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, 15-17 years old, Young grand title winner

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “It was on a summer holiday in Helsinki that Liina, then aged 13, heard about a large fox family living in the city suburbs on the island of Lehtisaari. The island has both wooded areas and fox-friendly citizens, and the foxes are relatively unafraid of humans. So Liina and her father spent one long July day, without a hide, watching the two adults and their six large cubs, which were almost the size of their parents, though slimmer and lankier. In another month, the cubs would be able to fend for themselves, but in July they were only catching insects and earthworms and a few rodents, and the parents were still bringing food for them – larger prey than the more normal voles and mice. It was 7pm when the excitement began, with the vixen’s arrival with a barnacle goose. Feathers flew as the cubs began fighting over it. One finally gained ownership – urinating on it in its excitement. Dragging the goose into a crevice, the cub attempted to eat its prize while blocking access to the others. Lying just metres away, Liina was able to frame the scene and capture the expression of the youngster as it attempted to keep its hungry siblings at bay.”

Nikon D4 + 28–300mm f3.5–5.6 lens; 1/125 sec at f5.6 (-0.3 e/v); ISO 1600.

The Pose

Mogens Trolle, Denmark

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Animal Portraits

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “A young male proboscis monkey cocks his head slightly and closes his eyes. Unexpected pale blue eyelids now complement his immaculately groomed auburn hair. He poses for a few seconds as if in meditation. He is a wild visitor to the feeding station at Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary in Sabah, Borneo – ‘the most laid-back character,’ says Mogens, who has been photographing primates worldwide for the past five years. In some primate species, contrasting eyelids play a role in social communication, but their function in proboscis monkeys is uncertain. The most distinctive aspect of this young male – sitting apart from his bachelor group – is, of course, his nose. As he matures, it will signal his status and mood (female noses are much smaller) and be used as a resonator when calling. Indeed, it will grow so big that it will hang down over his mouth – he may even need to push it aside to eat. Found only on the island of Borneo and nearby islands, proboscis monkeys are endangered. Eating mainly leaves (along with flowers, seeds and unripe fruit), they depend on threatened forests close to waterways or the coast and – being relatively lethargic – are easily hunted for food and bezoar stones (an intestinal secretion used in traditional Chinese medicine). Mogens’ unforgettable portrait, with the young male’s characteristic peaceful expression – ‘quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen on another monkey’ – connects us, he hopes, with a fellow primate.”

Canon EOS-1D X + 500mm f4 lens; 1/1000 sec at f7.1; ISO 1250; Manfrotto tripod + Benro gimbal head.

When mother says run

Shanyuan Li, China

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Behaviour: Mammals

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “This rare picture of a family of Pallas’s cats, or manuls, on the remote steppes of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau in northwest China is the result of six years’ work at high altitude. These small cats are normally solitary, hard to find and mostly active at dawn and dusk. Through long-term observation, Shanyuan knew his best chance to photograph them in daylight would be in August and September, when the kittens were a few months old and the mothers bolder and intent on caring for them. He tracked the family as they descended to about 3,800 metres (12,500 feet) in search of their favourite food – pikas (small, rabbit‑like mammals) – and set up his hide on the hill opposite their lair, an old marmot hole. Hours of patience were rewarded when the three kittens came out to play, while their mother kept her eye on a Tibetan fox lurking nearby. Their broad, flat heads, with small, low‑set ears, together with their colour and markings, help them stay hidden when hunting in open country, and their thick coats keep them alive in the extreme winters. In the clear air, against a soft background, Shanyuan caught their expressions in a rarely seen moment of family life, when their mother had issued a warning to hurry back to the safety of the lair. Their real threat, though, is not foxes but the degradation and fragmentation of their steppe grassland – throughout their Central Asian range – caused by overgrazing, arable conversion, mining and general human disturbance, alongside poisoning of their prey and hunting, for their fur and as pets.”

Canon EOS-1D X Mark II + 800mm f5.6 lens; 1/1250 sec at f11; ISO 640; Sirui tripod.

Etna's river of fire

Luciano Gaudenzio, Italy

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Earth's Environments

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “From a great gash on the southern flank of Mount Etna, lava flows within a huge lava tunnel, re-emerging further down the slope as an incandescent red river, veiled in volcanic gases. To witness the scene, Luciano and his colleagues had trekked for several hours up the north side of the volcano, through stinking steam and over ash-covered chaotic rocky masses – the residues of past eruptions. A wall of heat marked the limit of their approach. Luciano describes the show that lay before him as hypnotic, the vent resembling ‘an open wound on the rough and wrinkled skin of a huge dinosaur’. It was 2017, and he had been on the nearby island of Stromboli to photograph eruptions there when he heard news of the new vent on what is Europe’s largest volcano. He took the very next ferry, hoping he would arrive in time to see the peak of the latest show. Mount Etna, which lies on the boundary between the African and Eurasian continental plates, has been erupting continuously for almost 30 years, with shows that include lava flows and lava fountains – just the most recent phase in 15,000 years of volcanic activity, but a warning of its power. What Luciano most wanted to capture was the drama of the lava river flowing into the horizon. The only way to do that was to wait until just after sunset – ‘the blue hour’ – when contrasting shadows would cover the side of the volcano and, with a long exposure, he could set the incandescent flow against the blue gaseous mist to capture ‘the perfect moment’.”

Canon EOS 5D Mark III + 24mm f3.5 lens; 1 sec at f16; ISO 320; Leofoto tripod + ball head.

Life in the balance

Jaime Culebras, Spain

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Behaviour: Amphibians and Reptiles

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “A Manduriacu glass frog snacks on a spider in the foothills of the Andes, northwestern Ecuador. As big consumers of invertebrates, glass frogs play a key part in maintaining balanced ecosystems. That night, Jaime’s determination to share his passion for them had driven him to walk for four hours, in heavy rain, through the forest to reach the frogs’ streams in Manduriacu Reserve. But the frogs were elusive and the downpour was growing heavier and heavier. As he turned back, he was thrilled to spot one small frog clinging to a branch, its eyes like shimmering mosaics. Not only was it eating – he had photographed glass frogs eating only once before – but it was also a newly discovered species. Distinguished by the yellow spots on its back and lack of webbing between its fingers, the Manduriacu frog is found only in this small area. The reserve is private but seriously threatened by mining activities permitted by the government (open-pit mining for gold and copper), as well as illegal logging, and the new frog is considered critically endangered. Serenaded by a frog chorus in torrential rain – he held his umbrella and flash in one hand and the camera in the other – Jaime captured the first ever picture of this species feeding.”

Sony ILCE-7M3 + 90mm f2.8 lens; 1/100 sec at f16; ISO 320; Yongnuo flash + trigger; softbox.

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Show Business

Kirsten Luce, USA

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Wildlife Photojournalism: Single Image

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “One hand raised signalling the bear to stand, the other holding a rod, the trainer directs the ice-rink show. A wire muzzle stops the polar bear biting back, and blue safety netting surrounds the circus ring. It’s a shocking sight – not because of the massive predator towering over the petite woman in her ice-skating outfit but because of the uneven power dynamic expressed by the posture of the bear and the knowledge that it is not performing by choice. But for the visitors to the travelling Russian circus – here in the city of Kazan, Tatarstan – it is entertainment. They are ignorant of how the polar bear has been trained and what it might endure behind the scenes – including the fact that, when not performing, it probably spends most of its time in a transportation cage. The polar bear is one of four females, reportedly captured in Russia’s Franz Josef Land when two years old (‘abandoned’, according to the trainer) and still performing 18 years later – valuable property for the Circus on Ice, the only circus known to own polar bears. For the photographer, who has spent a couple of years reporting on animal exploitation and abuse, this was the most symbolically shocking of all the scenes of exploitation she has shot, featuring as it does such an Arctic icon of wildness.”

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV + 70–200mm f2.8 lens; 1/500 sec at f4; ISO 2000.

Great crested sunrise

Jose Luis Ruiz Jiménez, Spain

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Behaviour: Birds

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “After several hours up to his chest in water in a lagoon near Brozas, in the west of Spain, Jose Luis captured this intimate moment of a great crested grebe family. His camera floated on a U-shaped platform beneath the small camouflaged tent that also hid his head. The grebes are at their most elegant in the breeding season – ornate plumage, crests on their heads, neck feathers that they can fan into ruffs, striking red eyes and pink-tinged bills. They build a nest of aquatic plant material, often among reeds at the edge of shallow water. To avoid predators, their chicks leave the nest within a few hours of hatching, hitching a snug ride on a parent’s back. Here the backlings will live for the next two to three weeks, being fed as fast as their parents can manage. Even when a youngster has grown enough to be able to swim properly, it will still be fed, for many more weeks, until it fledges. This morning, the parent on breakfast duty – after chasing fish and invertebrates under water – emerged with damp feathers and a tasty meal, just when not a breath of wind rippled the water and the stripy-headed chick stretched out of its sanctuary, open‑beaked, to claim the fish. In soft light and muted reflections, Jose Luis was able to reveal the fine detail of these graceful birds and their attentive parental care.”

Nikon D4S + 600mm f4 lens + 1.4x teleconverter; 1/800 sec at f6.3; ISO 500; floating hide.

The golden moment

Songda Cai, China

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Under Water

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “A tiny diamondback squid paralarva flits below in the blackness, stops hunting for an instant when caught in the light beam, gilds itself in shimmering gold and then moves gracefully out of the light. The beam was Songda’s, on a night‑dive over deep water, far off the coast of Anilao, in the Philippines. He never knows what he might encounter in this dark, silent world. All sorts of larvae and other tiny animals – zooplankton – migrate up from the depths under cover of night to feed on surface-dwelling phytoplankton, and after them come other predators. Diamondback squid are widespread in tropical and subtropical oceans, preying on fish, other squid and crustaceans near the surface. In November, hundreds gather off Anilao to spawn. A paralarva is the stage between hatchling and subadult, already recognizable as a squid, here 6–7 centimetres long (21/2 inches). Transparent in all stages, a diamondback squid swims slowly, propelled by undulations of its triangular fins (the origin of their name), but by contracting its powerful mantles, it can spurt away from danger. Chromatophores (organs just below the skin) contain elastic sacs of pigment that stretch rapidly into discs of colour when the muscles around them contract; recent research suggests that they may also reflect light. Deeper in the skin, iridophores reflect and scatter light, adding an iridescent sheen. From above, Songda captured the fleeting moment when, hovering in perfect symmetry, the diamondback paralarva turned to gold.”

Nikon D850 + 60mm f2.8 lens; 1/200 sec at f20; ISO 500; Seacam housing; Seaflash 150D strobes; Scubalamp lights.

Backroom business

Paul Hilton, UK/Australia

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Wildlife Photojournalist Story Award

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “A young pig-tailed macaque is put on show chained to a wooden cage in Bali’s bird market, Indonesia. Its mother and the mothers of the other youngsters on show, would have been killed. Pig‑tailed macaques are energetic, social primates living in large troops in forests throughout Southeast Asia. As the forests are destroyed, they increasingly raid agricultural crops and are shot as pests. The babies are then sold into a life of solitary confinement as a pet, to a zoo or for biomedical research. Having convinced the trader that he was interested in buying the monkey, Paul photographed it in the dark backroom using a slow exposure. Much of the illegal wildlife in the open‑air bird market is traded in the backroom areas. Macaques can be legally sold; banned species such as baby orangutans are kept boxed out of sight. Such animal markets facilitate the international illegal trade, supplying on demand what isn’t in stock. So many animals stacked so close together also facilitates the spread of disease.”

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II + 16–35mm lens at 16mm; 1/10 sec at f3.2; ISO 1600.

A mean mouthful

Sam Sloss, Italy/USA

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, 11-14 years old

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “On a diving holiday in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, Sam stopped to watch the behaviour of a group of clownfishes as they swam with hectic and repeated patterns in and out and around their home, a magnificent anemone. He was intrigued by the expression of one individual, the result of its mouth being constantly open, holding something. Clownfish are highly territorial, living in small groups within an anemone. The anemone’s stinging tentacles protect the clownfish and their eggs from predators – a clownfish itself develops a special layer of mucus to avoid being stung. In return, the tenants feed on debris and parasites within the tentacles and aerate the water around them and may also deter anemone‑eating fish. Rather than following the moving fish in his viewfinder, Sam positioned himself where he knew it would come back into the frame. It was only when he downloaded the photos that he saw tiny eyes peeping out of its mouth. It was a ‘tongue-eating louse’, a parasitic isopod that swims in through the gills as a male, changes sex, grows legs and attaches itself to the base of the tongue, sucking blood. When the tongue withers and drops off, the isopod takes its place. Its presence may weaken its host, but the clownfish can continue to feed. Sam’s image, the reward for his curiosity, captures the three very different life forms, their lives intertwined.”

Nikon D300 + 105mm f2.8 lens; 1/250 sec at f18; ISO 200; Nauticam Housing + two INON Z-240 strobes.

Out of the blue

Gabriel Eisenband, Colombia

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winner 2020, Plants and Fungi

Quoted from the Natural History Museum “It was Ritak’Uwa Blanco, the highest peak in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, that Gabriel had set out to photograph. Pitching his tent in the valley, he climbed up to photograph the snow-capped peak against the sunset. But it was the foreground of flowers that captured his attention. Sometimes known as white arnica, the plant is a member of the daisy family found only in Colombia. It flourishes in the high-altitude, herb-rich páramo habitat of the Andes, adapted to the extreme cold with a dense covering of woolly white ‘hair’ and ‘antifreeze’ proteins in its leaves. As the magic hour of sunset passed, there followed a blue hour that drenched the scene in an ethereal blue light. But while the silver-grey leaves were washed in blue, the flowers shone bright yellow. It was also strangely calm, enabling Gabriel to use a long exposure to capture the clouds flowing over the high peak without any blur of movement among the plants. Seeming to glow ever brighter as the light faded, the yellow blooms began to dominate the scene, leading the eye towards the mountain but stealing the limelight from it.”

Nikon D300s + Nikon 10–24mm f3.5 lens at 11mm; 30 sec at f22; ISO 200; Gitzo tripod.

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PhotographyThe School of Photography14 October 2020Wildlife photographer of the year 2020, Wildlife photographerComment