Giffords Circus’s show is touring the UK. Established in 2000, Giffords Circus is a small circus company that delivers circus / theatre fusion to the villages and market towns of the south west. It combines dance, comedy, horses and live music in a two-hour show, located on village greens in a small white tent surrounded by handmade burgundy and gold showman’s wagons. Photographer Tom Pilston goes behind the scenes to meet the performers. Here: The incredible, gravity-defying Konjowoch Troupe. (Photo by Tom Pilston/The Guardian)

Tropical acrobatics by Adrià López Baucells in Manaus, Brazil. An unidentified South American marsupial, although the characteristic black markings on its face indicate it may be a mouse opossum. These small creatures are nocturnal and feed on bugs, fruit and bird eggs. (Photo by Adrià López Baucells/2019 Royal Society of Biology Photography Competition)

British puffin mid-flight with a beak full of small fish, their favourite foods being sand eels, herring and hake in Farne Islands, United Kingdom in June 2022. These pint-sized creatures are just 12 inches in height and have a wingspan of 25 inches. (Photo by Mathijs van Lisdonk/Media Drum Images)

An otter reaches for a snack from a customer at an otter cafe in Tokyo. Asian small-clawed otters are increasingly popular as novelty pets, particularly in Japan. Now international trade in the species may be banned. (Photo by Noriko Hayashi/The New York Times)

A small meadow pipit (left) is run off her feet as she tries to keep up with the demanding feeding schedule of an imposter - a larger cuckoo (right) on the Isle of Mull, Scotland in August 2022. (Photo by Graeme Cuerden/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A Cambodian villager rides a buffalo during the Pchum Ben festival, the festival of death, at Vihear Suor village in Kandal province on October 1, 2016. Thousands of Cambodians descended on the small village northeast of the capital on October 1 to cheer on the annual water buffalo race that marks the end of the 15-day festival for the dead. (Photo by Chor Sokunthea/AFP Photo)

Maudy – Kalulushi, Zambia. Maudy was born in a hut in a small village close to Kalulushi, in Zambia. She grew up playing in the street with the other children in the village, who all attend the same school, where students ages 3 to 10 years old are in the same class. The village has no shops, restaurants or hotels, and just a few children are lucky enough to have toys. Maudy and her friends found a box full of sunglasses on the street, which quickly became their favorite toys. “Toy Stories” project. (Photo and caption by Gabriele Galimberti)

A man rides a horse through a bonfire as part of a ritual in honor of Saint Anthony the Abbot, the patron saint of domestic animals, in San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain, Saturday, January 16, 2016. On the eve of Saint Anthony's Day, dozens ride their horses through the narrow cobblestone streets of the small village of San Bartolome during the “Luminarias”, a tradition that dates back 500 years and is meant to purify the animals with the smoke of the bonfires and protect them for the year to come. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP Photo)