Iraqi army soldiers warm themselves next to a fire near the Qayara air base, south of Mosul, Iraq, Tuesday, November 1, 2016. The U.N. human rights office is lauding efforts by the U.S.-led coalition in the battle against the Islamic State group in Mosul. The office in Geneva says coalition flights over Iraq have largely succeeded in preventing IS from bringing in 25,000 more civilians to the city center, where the militant group has been using people as human shields as Iraqi forces advance on Mosul. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

“Eye of the Tower” by Mehmet Yasa; Verona, Italy. “The staircase and the bell looks like an eye. Architecture can fascinate us in many ways”. (Photo by Mehmet Yasa/Art of Building Photography Awards 2017)

“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)

Mira Saville, 11, spins in her petticoat on the sand at the Nashuva Spiritual Community Jewish New Year celebration on Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California, United States September 14, 2015. As Jews take part in the Tashlich prayer, a Rosh Hashanah ritual, bread crumbs are tossed into the waters to symbolically cast away sins. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

“Eye of a toad”. Animal Portraits, Łukasz Bożycki, Poland. Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. “I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians”, he says, “at water level”. Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was “the glorious pool of sunset colour” and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Nikon D80 + 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens + extension tube; 1/125 sec at f9 (-2.3 e/v); ISO 100; built-in flash. (Photo by Łukasz Bożycki)

Miners carry a goats head for burial in the crater as part of an annual offering ceremony on the Ijen volcano on December 17, 2013 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The ritual is performed by the sulfur miners of Mount Ijen who slaughter a goat and then bury the head in the crater of mount Ijenn. The sacrifice is performed to ward off potential disasters for the next year. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

A woman stumbes as people run down Oxford Street, London, Britain, November 24, 2017. Police are responding to reports of an incident at London's Oxford Circus Tube station and have urged the public to avoid the area. (Photo by Peter Nicholls/Reuters)

Bloodthirsty by Thomas P. Peschak, Germany/South Africa — winner, Behaviour: birds. When rations run short on Wolf Island, in the remote northern Galápagos, the sharp-beaked ground finches become vampires. Their sitting targets are Nazca boobies and other large birds. The finches rely on a scant diet of seeds and insects, which regularly dries up, so they drink blood to survive. ‘I’ve seen more than half a dozen finches drinking from a single Nazca booby,’ says Tom. Rather than leave their nests the boobies tolerate the vampires, and the blood loss doesn’t seem to cause permanent harm. (Photo by Thomas P. Peschak/2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)