“Eye of a toad”. Animal Portraits, Łukasz Bożycki, Poland. Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. “I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians”, he says, “at water level”. Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was “the glorious pool of sunset colour” and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Nikon D80 + 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens + extension tube; 1/125 sec at f9 (-2.3 e/v); ISO 100; built-in flash. (Photo by Łukasz Bożycki)

A Chimpanzee is seen with funny expressions at Hanover Zoo on September 27, 2013 in Hanover, Germany. (Photo by Barcroft Media)

A Turkana man and a boy carrying a gun look on as a G3 battle rifle hangs from a structure used to dry fish at a fishing camp on the shores of Lake Turkana, some kilometres from Todonyang near the Kenya-Ethiopia border in northwestern Kenya October 12, 2013The Turkana are traditionally nomadic pastoralists, but they have seen the pasture that they need to feed their herds suffer from recurring droughts and many have turned to fishing. However, Lake Turkana is overfished, and scarcity of food and pastureland is fuelling long-standing conflict with Ethiopian indigenous Dhaasanac, who have seen grazing grounds squeezed by large-scale government agricultural schemes in southern Ethiopia. The Dhaasanac now venture ever deeper into Kenyan territory in search of fish and grass, clashing with neighbours. Fighting between the communities has a long history, but the conflict has become ever more fatal as automatic weapons from other regional conflicts seep into the area. While the Turkana region is short of basics like grass and ground-water, it contains other resources including oil reserves and massive, newly discovered underground aquifers. (Photo by Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

A lightning strikes St Peter's dome at the Vatican on February 11, 2013. Pope Benedict XVI announced today he will resign as leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics on February 28 because his age prevented him from carrying out his duties – an unprecedented move in the modern history of the Catholic Church. (Photo by Filippo Monteforte/AFP Photo)

Children react as a carnivorous theropod known as the Australovenator dinosaur walks through crowds along the Southbank, in London, Monday, February 18, 2013. The dinosaur is one of many that can be visited at the Erth's Dinosaur Petting Zoo, visiting from Australia, the creatures can be touched and fed at the Southbank Centre. (Photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo)

French army deminers secure a helicopter in a hangar at the Gao airport, on February 9, 2013. Two Malian soldiers and four civilians have already been killed by landmines, and French troops are still fighting off what Paris called “residual jihadists” in reclaimed territory. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

“Cub”. In the colony of penguins in South Georgia. (Photo and caption by Ondrej Zaruba/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

Gers, traditional Mongolian tents, are seen on a hill in an area known as a ger district in Ulan Bator June 26, 2013. Approximately 60 percent of the population of Ulan Bator live in settlements known as ger districts and in many cases residents have limited access to basic services such as water and sanitation. According to a 2010 National Population Center census, every year between thirty and forty thousand people migrate from the countryside to the capital Ulan Bator. Ger districts in the city have been expanding rapidly in recent years. Mongolia is the world's least densely populated country, with 2.8 million people spread across an area around three times the size of France. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)