Andrew Parkinson, animal behaviour category winner: Crepuscular Contentment, Derbyshire. “In 15 years of working with badgers I’ve never seen a badger sit out in the open to have a scratch. I was sat concealed behind a tree and downwind so it was especially nice that the badger had his back to me, demonstrating just how inconspicuous and inconsequential my presence was”. (Photo by Andrew Parkinson/British Wildlife Photography Awards 2017)

A killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) chick on sand dunes in Pacific Grove, California, US on June 21, 2023. The killdeer gets its name from its shrill, loud call. (Photo by Rory Merry/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

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)

A goat hops from student to student during a goat yoga class at the University of Tennessee on August 25, 2022 as part of welcome back week. The session was organised by Goat Yoga Nashville. (Photo by Matt Hamilton/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP Photo)

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)

Creative imagery, gold winner: Sprats and Bread, Ruediger Schulz, Germany. (Photo by Ruediger Schulz/2021 Bird Photographer of the Year)

A juvenile European starling hops from deer to deer eating insects. The white-tailed deer did not seem at all bothered by the bird - who can be seen cleaning it of ticks and bugs. The starling was one of a flock near the herd of deer in Sandy Hook, New Jersey, USA in the last decade of November 2025. (Photo by Erik Kessler/Solent News & Photo Agency)

As if pulled from a Disney film, a fox is mesmerised by a butterfly hovering in front of its nose in a field in Taplow, Berkshire, South East England in the second decade of July 2023. (Photo by Ann Aveyard/Animal News Agency)