Indian Runner ducks march past farm buildings at the Vergenoegd wine estate near Cape Town, South Africa, May 16, 2016. Each day, a quack squad of killer ducks are released for the first of two sorties at South Africa's Vergenoegd wine farm in Stellenbosch. Their mission – seek and destroy thousands of pests out to ruin the season's harvest. Fanning out across the vineyards, some 1,000 Indian Runner ducks hone in on their hidden targets with uncanny precision, locating the tiny white dune snails feasting on budding vines. (Photo by Mike Hutchings/Reuters)

Born in 1958 in Abbazia, Italy, Frank Horvat is considered one of the founding fathers of French fashion photography. Frank Horvat: Storia di un Fotografo is on at Palazzo Chiablese Musei Reali, Turin, until 16 June. Here: Prostitutes, Bois de Boulogne, 1956. (Photo by Frank Horvat/The Guardian)

A municipal worker sits on a bench, next to a statue, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, during the 2018 soccer World Cup, Thursday, June 28, 2018. Nizhny Novgorod was a “closed city” during the Soviet era. It was known as Gorky until 1990 and it was here that dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov was held under house arrest. Now the city hosts six World Cup matches and is teeming with tourists. That was unthinkable in the Soviet era and even rare now in a city that is seldom visited by outsiders. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

“A Balinese man shows off his pride and joy, a fighting cock, while on a cigarette break after a morning’s work in nearby fields”. (Photo by Coltrane Koh/The Guardian)

A regional train passes fog-covered fields in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany, early Friday, October 7, 2022. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

“Artist of the light”. While shooting sunrise in the Vermilion lakes area of Banff national park, Canada, I met a fellow photographer on the scene. Most of the time, we tried not to get in each other's way, however, just by accident, I snapped a picture with him in it working on his tripod settings, and it turned out to be a great photo compared to my sunrise shots. (Photo and caption by Victor Liu/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.

Commended. In late May, about a quarter of a million snow geese arrive from North America to nest on Wrangel Island, in northeastern Russia. They form the world's largest breeding colony of snow geese. Photographer Sergey Gorshkov spent two months on the remote island photographing the unfolding dramas. Arctic foxes take advantage of the abundance of eggs, caching surplus eggs for leaner times. But a goose (here the gander) is easily a match for a fox, which must rely on speed and guile to steal eggs. “The battles were fairly equal”, notes Sergey, “and I only saw a fox succeed in grabbing an egg on a couple of occasions, despite many attempts”. Surprisingly, “the geese lacked any sense of community spirit”, he adds, “and never reacted when a fox harassed a neighboring pair nesting close by”. (Photo by Sergey Gorshkov/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer)

Olga Gharkova enters a aromatherapy room at the British Banya bathhouse, Saturday, February 15, 2014, in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, just a few miles away from the ski slopes where athletes are competing for Olympic medals. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/Associated Press)