Belarusian villagers celebrate the Christmas carol rite (Kalyady) in the village of Danilevichy, some 320 km south of Minsk on January 7, 2020. Kalyady is an ancient pagan holiday originally celebrated on winter solstice. Dressed-up people walk from house to house singing, dancing, eating and drinking with their neighbours. (Photo by Sergei Gapon/AFP Photo)

A two-week-old hoglet finds an unusual spot to sit at the Happy Hedgehogs rescue centre in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire in the second decade of September 2023. (Photo by James Glossop/The Times)

Andrey Karr from Western Riders Slacklines at sunset above big waves in Nazare, Portugal on December 27, 2017. (Photo by Aidan Williams/National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)

Belgian animal sculptor Emmanuel Janssens Casteels works at his desk next to a replica of a Smilodon, an extinct genus of machairodont felid, in his workshop in Prayssas December 3, 2014. Casteels' company OPHYS specializes in life-size reconstructions and the sculpting or moulding reproductions of animals and hyper-realist fossils. His reconstructions are exhibited in museums and theme parks. (Photo by Regis Duvignau/Reuters)

Birds behaviour winner: Land of the Eagle by Audun Rikardsen, Norway. High on a ledge, on the coast near his home in northern Norway, Rikardsen carefully positioned an old tree branch that he hoped would make a perfect golden eagle lookout. To this, he bolted a tripod head with a camera, flashes and motion sensor attached, and built himself a hide a short distance away. From time to time, he left road‑kill carrion nearby. Very gradually – over the next three years – a golden eagle got used to the camera and started to use the branch regularly to survey the coast below. (Photo by Audun Rikardsen/2019 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

In this Sunday, April 27, 2014 handout photo provided by Busch Gardens Tampa, mother armadillo Zowie, left, welcomes her newborn Southern three-banded armadillo baby at the Animal Ambassador Team, in Tampa, Fla. The baby was able to walk and roll into a ball within moments of its birth. Southern three-banded armadillos are the only species of armadillo that can fully roll up into a ball. (Photo by AP Photo/Busch Gardens Tampa)

The Wildscreen festival is the world’s biggest celebration of screen-based natural history storytelling which takes place every two years in Bristol. Here: “Walrus in Midnight Sun”. Walrus feed mostly on bivalves in productive, shallow and often sandy habitats in the Arctic. This individual, though, arrived on a beach outside Tromsø, northern Norway, and found comfort on a stranded dead sperm whale. After two weeks he approached Audun, and only half a metre away he stretched his tusk forward and touched his hand gently. “This was one of the most memorable moments of my life”, Rikardsen says. He named the 500kg male Buddy. After two months, the dead whale was decomposed and Buddy suddenly disappeared. (Photo by Audun Rikardsen/Wildscreen 2016)

A Goodfellow's Tree Kangaroo joey with its mother at Sydney Zoo in Australia on January 22, 2021. The 28-week-old male joey, who is yet to be named, has only just begun to pop his head and shoulders out of his mum's pouch. (Photo by Taronga Zoo via Reuters)