A baby elephant gives himself a dust bath in Kruger National Park, South Africa early November 2022. (Photo by Sylvie Failletaz/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 puffin swims underwater in search for fish off the coast of the Farne Islands in Northumberland, North East England in the last decade of July 2025. (Photo by Brian Matthews/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A common gallinule runs across the water to escape a nearby alligator at Green Cay Nature Center in Boynton Beach, Florida on September 4, 2025. Unlike most waterbirds, gallinules have long toes that allow them to walk on floating vegetation. The species is known for its loud, cackling calls that often echo through wetlands. (Photo by Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

This spiky tenrec was spotted in Madagascar’s Mantadia National Park in the last decade of September 2025. Mostly nocturnal and rarely seen, it puffs out its spines when threatened. Spiky tenrecs are excellent swimmers — unlike most spiny mammals, some species of tenrec can forage in streams and rivers, using their spines for protection while hunting aquatic insects and small prey. (Photo by Dale Morris/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) raised by a falconer as part of a captive-breeding program, pictured in its enclosure in Vysocina, Czech Republic on October 22, 2025. (Photo by Slavek Ruta/ZUMA Press Wire via Alamy Live News)

Belgian-Dutch racing driver Maz Verstappen was racing for Red Bull at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka at Suzuka International Circuit on October 9, 2022 when a spider on the camera lens threatened to get in the way of the action. (Photo by DPPI)