Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

Border guard officers, wearing masks against COVID-19 infection adjust their outfits before a distinguished service awards ceremony for employees of the interior ministry in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, July 16, 2020. Romania has registered on Thursday the highest number of COVID-19 infection cases since the pandemic reached the country in February, 777 in a 24 hours interval, as many fail to observe the mandatory protection measures, like the use of a face mask indoors or maintaining social distancing. (Photo by Andreea Alexandru/AP Photo)

(L-R) American actress Alexandra Shipp and American model Paris Jackson attend The Elizabeth Taylor Ball To End AIDS at West Hollywood Park on September 15, 2022 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Staff prepare for Halloween at the Forbidden Corner tourist attraction, a labyrinth in the heart of Tupgill Park, in the Yorkshire Dales on October 19, 2022. (Photo by James Glossop/The Times)

Ecuadorian indigenous people celebrate the festival of the moon or Kulla Raymi, in Quito, Ecuador, 21 September 2021. A circle on the ground made up of fruits and inside the Andean symbol of the chacana, multinational geometric flags and a cross that symbolizes the four cardinal points, were the setting in which the festival of the moon, the Kulla, was commemorated this Tuesday. Raymi, on a hill in Quito. It is one of the four most significant festivities of the Andean agroecological calendar, which commemorates the beginning of life and exalts women as the maximum representation of fertility. (Photo by Jose Jacome/EPA/EFE)

This undated image provided by World View shows World View capsule and balloon spacecraft that will rise to 100,000 feet above Earth for passengers to see the curvature of the planet and the blackness of space. Space tourism companies are employing designs including winged vehicles, vertical rockets with capsules and high-altitude balloons. While developers envision ultimately taking people to orbiting habitats, the moon or beyond, the immediate future involves short flights into or near the lowest reaches of space without going into orbit. (Photo by World View via AP Photo)

North Korean soldiers participate in a mass military parade at Kim Il-Sung square in Pyongyang on October 10, 2015. North Korea was marking the 70th anniversary of its ruling Workers' Party. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

Dust covered seats are pictured inside the lounge of the Jaisalmer Airport in desert state of Rajasthan, India, August 13, 2015. Two-and-a-half years after the completion of a new $17 million terminal building, the airport in Jaisalmer, a small and remote desert city in India's western Rajasthan state, stands empty. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)