Each year, photographers across Britain—and, unknowingly, Britain’s wildlife— vie for the attention of the British Wildlife Photography Awards, a competition celebrating the Britain’s biodiversity. Only a handful of the 14,000-odd photos could be selected as honorees, with the grand prize winner taking home over $6,000.
The photographs were submitted to 10 different categories: Animal Behaviour, Animal Portraits, Botanical Britain, Black & White, British Seasons, Coast & Marine, Habitat, Hidden Britain, Urban Wildlife, and Wild Woods. Click through to see all the winning shots.
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A pheasant on a cold spring morning in Wales. This photo won the “11 and Under” category of the competition.
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The winner of the “12-14 years” category was this photo of a Roe deer (C. capreolus) in the English woods.
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The overall winner of the young British Wildlife Photographer of the Year award was this striking photo of a coot (F. atra) fleeing from a fight and taking off from a pond in Surrey.
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This photo of a red squirrel’s silhouette was the runner-up image in the “Black & White” category.
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A pair of great crested grebes are in courtship in this runner-up photo in the “Animal Behavior” category.
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An walrus (O. rosmarus) happy lying on a slipway in North Yorkshire, England. The shot of the walrus—dubbed “Thor”—was taken at 2:28am local time, and was the runner-up in the “Urban Wildlife” category.
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This head-on view of a hair was the runner-up in the “Animal Portraits” category.
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This shot of seaweed thriving under the surface of a rock pool was the runner-up in the “Botanical Britain” category.
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These fireworks anemone were imaged with fluorescence photography, highlighting the remarkable arms of the organisms. The image was the runner-up in the “Coast & Marine” category.
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Runner-up in the “Wild Woods” category was this mystical shot of Badbury Clump, a collection of beech trees and bluebells in Oxfordshire.
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These slime moulds are minuscule. Their photo—composed of 160 individual images—won the “Botanical Britain” part of the contest.
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Runner-up in the “Hidden Britain” category was this shot of a flower crab spider wrestling a bee on the underside of a daisy in Devon, England.
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Runner-up in the “Habitat” category was this shot—“The Crop Thief”—showing a brown hare (L. europaeus) gnoshing on a crop in Nantwich Cheshire, England.
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A starling in flight at night (that’s right!) won the “Animal Portraits” category.
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This shot of a raven aloft over the Isle of Arran, Scotland, won the competition’s “Black & White” category.
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Winner of the “Wild Woods” category, this spellbinding shot looks up toward the highest heights of a beech tree grove in East Lothian, Scotland.
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Behold, the overall winner of the competition: a shot of a socc—er, football—covered in goose barnacles on its underside. The barnacles are not native to the UK, indicating the long journey the ball has been on.
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Foxes are a familiar sight in the UK, and this one—a female in Bristol—is no exception. The photographer captured the fox pacing a long a wall in an electricity substation, and the photo won the “Urban Wildlife” competition category.
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It’s not quite a fox on a box, but it’ll do. This fox in Nottinghamshire’s Sherwood Pines Forest Park made its way onto a tree branch, making for a pretty composition in this competition winner for the “Habitat” category.
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Several frogs’ heads poke out from a pond as males wrestle, competing for a female. This image won the competition’s “Animal Behavior” category.
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The winner of the “Hidden Britain” category was this beautifully composed shot of common blue butterflies (P. icarus) in a field in Devon.
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Source: Gizmodo