The shortlist for the coveted Bird Photographer of the Year awards has been announced by Nature Photographers and the British Trust for Ornithology. Here: Red-billed oxpecker on an impala, Kruger National Park, South Africa. (Photo by Edmund Aylmer/BPOTY/Cover Images/The Guardian)

Members of the Wasteland Warriors from the movie “MadMax” pose during the Wacken Open Air festival on August 4, 2016 in Wacken, Germany. Wacken is a village in northern Germany with a population of 1,800 that has hosted the annual festival, which attracts heavy metal fans from around the world, since 1990. (Photo by Alexander Koerner/Getty Images)

Police officers check documents of a man in central Moscow, Russia, Sunday, June 25, 2023. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

Trees are consumed by the Bridge Fire near Wrightwood, Calif., Wednesday, September 11, 2024. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

A man falls from a horse at a rodeo exhibition during Tradition Day, aimed to preserve gaucho traditions, in San Antonio de Areco, Argentina, Sunday, November 13, 2022. Tradition Day is celebrated to honor the birth of Argentine writer Jose Hernandez, author of the country's national poem “The Gaucho Martin Fierro”. (Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

Aurorae category runner-up: Lone Tree under a Scandinavian Aurora by Tom Archer (UK). The photographer decided to explore the area around the hotel on a very crisp -35C evening in Finnish Lapland. When he found this tree, he decided to wait for the misty conditions to change and could not believe his luck when the sky cleared and the aurora came out in the perfect spot. Archer spent about an hour photographing it before his camera started to lock up because of the harsh conditions, but by then he was happy to call it a night. (Photo by Tom Archer/2020 Astronomy Photographer of the Year)

A man pours fake fuel on the face of a protester as they perform at a demonstration against the fossil fuel industry during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 7, 2021. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)

A health worker administers a dose of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine to a worker in a local entertainment venue area where a new cluster of COVID-19 infections were found in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, April 7, 2021. Officials in Thailand’s capital have ordered a two-week closure of all entertainment venues in three districts to try to limit the spread of the coronavirus from nightspots there. (Photo by Sakchai Lalit/AP Photo)