11 best wildlife photographers of 2016

The award for the best wildlife photos is the best way to have fun for every connoisseur of the surrounding world. Photos of the finalists really shake. Here you can see a curious fox, wandered into the city, and a hungry bird eating a termite, summer bugs, circling overhead in a warm night. These impressive photos of the judge award are selected among many others in the search for the best of the best. The competition appeared in 1965. Then the participants were about five hundred, and now every year they send almost fifty thousand photos. The focus is on nature, the originality, creativity and technical performance of the images are judged. The works of finalists after selection are exhibited in the London Museum of Natural History. Meet the list of works presented in the last season of the award.

"The catch section", Odun Rikardsen from Norway

Sometimes fishing boats themselves search for killer whales and humpback whales to use them to find herring migrating in Arctic Norwegian waters. But in the last winters the whales also began to find ships. In Rikardsen's picture, just such a moment is presented - a large male killer whale is eating herring, which on the other hand was captured by a fishing net. Killer whales recognize the sounds that these ships emit when they lift the nets, so it's easy for them to find food in this way. There is a mutually beneficial cooperation, although sometimes it can be dangerous.

"Whirling under the stars", Imre Poto from Hungary

Imre succeeded in catching the moment in the chaotic spinning of summer gnats over the Hungarian river of Rab. This is an amazing snapshot of the natural spectacle unfolding under the starlit sky. Every year for a few days from late July to early August, huge numbers of adult insects appear in the Danube basin, where they developed as larvae. The photo shows a moment just after sunset, when insects are especially active. First they swirl over the water, but then gain altitude and fly bolder.

"Curious neighbor", Sam Hobson from the UK

Sam knew exactly who he expected to visit when he was installing a camera on the wall, settling in the summer in a suburb of Bristol. This English city is known for its foxes, living right on the streets. The photographer wanted to reflect with a photograph the inquiring nature of the red-haired city fox to show how this curiosity is similar to the interest of people viewing the wildlife around them.

"Disappearing fish", Iago Leonardo from Spain

In the open ocean there is no place to hide. Selenium fish with an unusual square profile, low-pitched mouth and high-set large eyes, is a master of camouflage, which helps her hide even in such conditions. Recent studies have shown that such fish use special receptors in skin cells - these receptors reflect polarized light, which helps them to be virtually invisible to both prey predators and fish that will become their victims. The light differs in different ways depending on the angle of incidence of the sun's rays and the position of the fish. Anyway, selenium looks like a real ocean mirror!

"Playing with pangolin," Lance Van de Viver from New Zealand

Lance had to watch for a few hours the pride of the lions until they stopped to rest by the water. The picture is not interesting at all. In the South African reserve with lions live and pangolins, one of which is noticed pride. Pangolins are animals with a night life, they feed on insects and are covered with a kind of armor from scales. These mammals at the time of danger can be folded into a ball, which is almost impossible to penetrate. A unique picture of Lance shows just such a moment when the pangolin curled into a ball, and the lions try to play with it.

"Crystal Precision", Mario Zea from Spain

Every night almost immediately after sunset, about thirty bats fly out of an old house in Salamanca, going on a hunt. Each of the bats is able to eat up to three thousand insects per night on the fly. The flight of these creatures is very fast, with sharp movements due to the fact that the mice use the echolocation for orientation, finding obstacles in front of them with the help of sounds.

"Throwing Termite", Willem Krueger from South Africa

Termite the termite, and then again termite - using the tip of its massive beak, the rhinoceros bird tosses insects into the air, and then swallows them. Located on the road in the South African national park, this yellow-billed hornbill was so carried away by eating termites that it came to Willem's car at a distance of six meters!

"The exploding furnace," Alexander Eck from France

When the volcano erupts in Hawaii, the spectacle turns out to be incredible. This picture shows a special moment. Kilauea volcano is one of the most active in the world, its eruption has not ceased since 1983. The hot-tempered lava with a temperature of one thousand degrees Celsius flies into the sea, high columns of steam rise, which condense, creating salty, acid fogs or rain.

"Collective courtship", Scott Portelli from Australia

Thousands of huge cuttlefish gather every winter in the waters off the southern Australian coast to mate. They do it only once in a lifetime. Males compete for areas of the bottom with the best holes for laying eggs, and then lure females with a charming change in tones, texture and pattern on the skin. Rivalry between the largest cuttlefish, whose length reaches a meter, is very severe, because males for one female sometimes account for more than ten.

The Golden Relic, Dhyei Shah from India

In the forests of northeastern India and Bhutan there are less than two and a half thousand adults of gold langurs. They are listed in the Red Book. These primates live high on trees, and they are usually difficult to see. But on an artificial island on the Brahmaputra River you will definitely see these monkeys. The island dedicated to the god Shiva became famous for the number of langurs living on it. As soon as the photographer came to the ground from the boat, he noticed a golden wool of a langur high on a tree above him. So this interesting shot turned out, showing a rare animal in its habitat.

"Thistle destroyer", Isaac Aylward from Great Britain

Isaac is located on an alpine meadow, more like a purple sea of flowers. In the frame was a cannabis with a reddish plumage, settled on a thistle flower and tearing its beak in search of food. Seeds resemble buds resembling parachutes, one after another descending into the air. The ideally caught moment makes this picturesque photograph more like a picture.