A pelican on a lake in California in the first decade of January 2024 deftly snares a large trout after scooping it up, tossing it into the air and catching it in its bill. (Photo by Jiahong Zeng/Solent news)

A starling jealously guards a seed station in the back garden of the photographer’s Michigan home in January 2024. (Photo by Lisa Cavanary/Solent News)

While many of us would pay good money for a spa mud bath, these fortunate hippos in South Luangwa National Park, Zambia, have nature to thank as they take a plunge in a lagoon in the second decade of February 2024. (Photo by Dimitar Nedelchev/Solent News)

A stork starts from its nest in the cliffs high above the Atlantic Ocean in Cabo Sardao, Portugal, Friday, March 29, 2024. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

A curious trio of owl monkeys peep out of a tree hollow on the Marañón River near the city of Nauta, Peru in April 2024. (Photo by James Cai/Solent News)

A spoonbill appears to creep across the sky as it comes in to land on a nearby branch in the Orlando Wetlands, Florida in the second decade of June 2024. (Photo by Deborah Sandidge/Solent News)

Four-month-old fox cubs squaring up to each other in Walthamstow, England on August 7, 2015. (Photo by Greg Morgan/Barcroft Media)

A red squirrel leaps over a gray squirrel after the larger squirrel became annoyed with its territory being encroached upon, Saturday, May 28, 2022, in Freeport, Maine. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)