“Only the most intrepid urban explorers cross the tattered ruins of the old Iron Curtain to endure the excessive bureaucracy, military paranoia and freezing winds of the East to hunt for the ghosts of an empire. Rebecca Litchfield is one who couldn't resist the haunting allure of the ruins of the Soviet Union”. – Yahoo News. Photo: Hungary, MAV 424 Steam Train. (Photo by Rebecca Bathory)

These Northern Lights “rainbows” have turned the sky greener than the Earth below. Vitaly Istomin, 26, spent several nights in freezing conditions under the stars in northern Russia’s Khibiny Mountains to capture the aurora’s “rainbows”. (Photo by Vitaly Istomin/Caters News Agency)

Fred Fugen seen training for a jump over Austria on May 12, 2014. Fearless skydivers jump from an altitude of 10,000 meters above the largest mountain in Europe. Frederic Fugen, 34, and Vincent Reffet, 29, leapt from a plane in the freezing skies above Mont-Blanc in the French Alps. The jump is from such a height the pictures show the curvature of the earth. (Photo by Dominique Daher/Barcroft Media)

A) 1st place WINNER – Roy Rimmer. “This rat was in an outdoor set I made, the set up is two meters long and a meter wide made of Perspex,it has a plywood front with holes cut in for my camera and flash guns, I placed two rusty paint cans in the set up and the rat would leap from one can too the other, I had to use flash to freeze the action”.

These photographs of hundreds of ducks following their leader down a river are truly mesmerizing. Rafeur Rahman of Bangladesh climbed a high bridge and saw hundreds of ducks apparently playing a game of follow the leader. More than 500 ducks live on the river, where the mosses and snails provide the perfect habitat. Here: Ducks in the river Baral in Bangladesh. (Photo by Rafeur Rahman/Caters News Agency)

A giant river otter, the world's largest otter species, looks out of its enclosure at the newly completed River Safari in Singapore, on March 25, 2013. (Photo by Wong Maye-E/Associated Press)

Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice and these images capture the essence of that perfectly. Incredible ever-changing landscapes demonstrate the contrast between the freezing ice and burning skies that dominate Iceland's beauty. The stunning pictures taken by photographer Lurie Belegurschi show the breathtaking and utterly unique ice plains formed in sub-zero temperatures. (Photo by Lurie Belegurschi/Caters News)

Women walk through the snow on Wimbledon common with their dogs on February 10, 2012 in London, England. The Met Office cold weather alert remains at Level 3 as southern parts of England continue to suffer from cold weather and freezing conditions, with further snowfall overnight. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)