When Colin Garratt went to photograph the traditional sentinels of the British countryside, he found they ranged from the dapper to the downright sinister. “They are not from the anaesthetised world of the craft fair”, says Colin Garratt, “but are the direct descendants of the ancient spectres which have haunted the landscape for centuries”. The Scarecrow Exhibition is at Geddes Gallery, London, from 25 to 30 March. (Photo by Colin Garratt)

In this Sunday, May 22, 2016 photo, contestants in the first Miss Trans Israel beauty pageant gather for rehearsal in Tel Aviv, Israel. The pageant will be held at HaBima, Israel's national theater, in Tel Aviv on Friday. Tel Aviv has emerged as one of the world's most LGBT-friendly travel destinations, standing in sharp contrast to most of the rest of the Middle East, where gays can face persecution. (Photo by Oded Balilty/AP Photo)

A mahout rides an elephant at Tad Sae Waterfall outside Luang Prabang, Laos July 31, 2016. Protected by the United Nations cultural heritage agency UNESCO, Luang Prabang is one of the most alluring places in the region – a city that evokes old-world romance that has gained a reputation as a travellers' Shangri La. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

Commended. In late May, about a quarter of a million snow geese arrive from North America to nest on Wrangel Island, in northeastern Russia. They form the world's largest breeding colony of snow geese. Photographer Sergey Gorshkov spent two months on the remote island photographing the unfolding dramas. Arctic foxes take advantage of the abundance of eggs, caching surplus eggs for leaner times. But a goose (here the gander) is easily a match for a fox, which must rely on speed and guile to steal eggs. “The battles were fairly equal”, notes Sergey, “and I only saw a fox succeed in grabbing an egg on a couple of occasions, despite many attempts”. Surprisingly, “the geese lacked any sense of community spirit”, he adds, “and never reacted when a fox harassed a neighboring pair nesting close by”. (Photo by Sergey Gorshkov/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer)

In this Sunday, June 27, 2010 file photo two men compete in an ostrich race at Highgate ostrich farm in Oudtshoorn, South Africa. Clambering onto an ostrich for a ride used to be popular among tourists in a South African town of Oudtshoorn known of as the “ostrich capital of the world”. Not so much anymore. Two major ostrich farms in Oudtshoorn have stopped offering ostrich rides to tourists, responding to concerns about the birds’ welfare. A third farm is sticking with the feature, saying it is regulated and that ostriches do not experience discomfort. The Highgate farm, however, continues to offer ostrich rides. (Photo by Shuji Kajiyama/AP Photo)

Performers dressed as Pikachu, the popular animation Pokemon series character, perform in the Pikachu parade in Yokohama on August 7, 2016. Some 50 life-size Pikachu characters, the most famous from the Pokemon game, marched along the city’s waterfront street as visitors took mobile phone pictures and videos of them in scorching sunshine. Some participants said they attended the event to search for rare characters of Pokemon – a word short for “pocket monster” – for the megahit smartphone app, which was launched in several countries around the world last month. (Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP Photo)

A polar bear whose bottom half is caked in oily black gunk. A whale wrapped in striped fabric: a pseudo straightjacket. These are the messes climate change leaves behind, the things we know are happening but often don’t have the opportunity to see with our own eyes. Swiss street art duo Christian Rebecchi and Pablo Togni, otherwise known as NeverCrew, met in art school when they were 15 and started making work together soon after. As a team, the artists adorn the world with eye-popping and gut-wrenching images depicting the consequences of humanity’s actions on earth. (Photo by NeverCrew/The Huffington Post)

A man walks in the early morning to start his day picking tea leaves at a plantation in Nandi Hills, in Kenya's highlands region west of capital Nairobi, November 5, 2014. Emerald-coloured tea bushes blanketing the rolling hills of Nandi County have long provided a livelihood for small-scale farmers, helping make Kenya one of the world's biggest tea exporters. But ideal weather and bigger harvests, instead of producing bumper earnings, have led to a glut of Kenya's speciality black tea. (Photo by Noor Khamis/Reuters)