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)

Masai women dressed in traditional clothes wear surgical masks as they wait for a ceremony marking World Elephant Day in the Amboseli National Park, Kenya, August 12, 2020. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

A man and a woman jump over a bonfire during Ivan Kupala Day celebrations held by the Belarusian State Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Lifestyle in the village of Ozertso near Minsk, Belarus on July 4, 2020. Ivan Kupala Day, also known as Ivana-Kupala or Kupala Night, is a traditional pagan holiday celebrated in eastern Slavic cultures. Various rituals are traditionally performed on Kupala Night, including making flower wreaths, fortune-telling, jumping over bonfires, and burning a wheel-like effigy symbolizing the sun. (Photo by Natalia Fedosenko/TASS)

Breath of an Arctic fox by Marco Gaiotti, Italy. Marco was watching this little Arctic fox as it incessantly called another nearby. Gradually he noticed the fox’s wet breath was quickly freezing in the air after each call. It was late winter in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, and the air was -35C (-31F). Photographing Arctic foxes is often frustrating, as they are normally running around fast in search of food, but this one was very relaxed and let Marco get close enough to focus on it, with the light glowing perfectly in the background. (Photo by Marco Gaiotti/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021)

Female Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters watch on as they release a bear into the wild in the Gara Mountains near the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk on March 4, 2018, after Iraqi Kurdish Animal rights activists from a local NGO rescued it from a private home. (Photo by Safin Hamed/AFP Photo)

In this Tuesday, February 28, 2017 photo, 3-month-old Junior Alexis Patino, son of FARC rebel Deisy Garcia, sleeps next to his mother's weapon at a rebel camp in a demobilization zone in La Carmelita, in Colombia's southwestern Putumayo state. Amid the makeshift tents and communal kitchens where Colombia's largest rebel army is preparing to lay down its weapons, a new sound is emerging: the cries of babies. (Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)

People gather in the street the night before a local lockdown amidst the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Manchester, Britain on October 22, 2020. (Photo by Molly Darlington/Reuters)

Coronavirus infection (COVID-19) is still continuing in the country, a guard of Gyeongbokgung Palace wears a protective mask with a goblin pattern at the entrance of the palace, which is currently not being opened to the public due to Covid-19 in Seoul, South Korea on June 18, 2020. (Photo by Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images)