| Thursday, October 20, 2005 |
| Wildlife Picture of the Year |
 The Wildlife Photographer of the Year votes are in and the picture you see on the left entitled "Sky Chase" is the winner (Click on image to enlarge). Manuel Presti of Italy photographed a peregrine falcon swooping in for the kill above a city park in Rome.
The image won the Animal Behavior: Birds category as well as the overal title.
 The next image was captured by Martyn Colbeck in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya. And took the prize in the Black and White category. (Again, click on all images to enlarge).
The accomplished photographer and documentary film-maker said that the air was so clear that Mt. Kilimanjaro is visible some 25 miles away.
 Alexander Mustard's shot of a bohar snapper almost appears to have been digitally altered. Once you get past the menacing look of the reef predator, you'll see the crowd of other fish.
I read that the fish are normally solitary, but gather in large numbers during the spawning season south of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt.
The snapper picture won the Animal Portraits category.
 And, finally, Ruben Smit from Holland caught this on film: common toads mating. The picture captured the Animal Behavior: All Other Animals category. Now, the picture isn't as exciting as the others, but the story behind the picture is fascinating.
BBC News wrote, "Each spring, common toads migrate in huge numbers to mate in the ponds of Veluwe, a national park just outside the city of Arnhem.
"Wading into the cold, crystal-clear water, Ruben held his camera as low as possible to the pond bottom to get a toad's-eye view of the squirming mass and used a wide-angle lens to show as much of the action as possible.
"'At that moment, there must have been about 200 toads in the water and they were mating with my fingers - they were so horny. The males are searching for any movement and every time I moved my hands the males would go for them,' Ruben recalled.
"'Every five minutes I had to shake them off; I had two or three toads clamped to my hands.'"
You can find the whole story about the competition organized by BBC Wildlife Magazine and London's Natural History Museum here. |
posted by Joe Napalm @ 10:24 AM   |
|
|
|
|
|
