“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)

Revellers take part in an annual block party before Carnival in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, January 16, 2016. The Rio de Janeiro Carnival will be held from February 5 to February 9. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/Reuters)

Natalia Lage Rainha de Drums of the Escola de Samba Inocente de Belford Roxo during a presentation in the parade of the Special Group of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro at Avenida Marques de Sapucai, Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro on April 21, 2021. The Carnival parades that take place in February were postponed to this month of April due to the high number of cases caused during the pandemic caused by COVID-19 (Coronavirus). (Photo by Thiago Ribeiro/AGIF via AFP Photo)

A king eider sea duck tackles a prickly dinner of sea urchin on a lake in Batsfjord, Norway in the last decade of August 2024. The drake’s breeding plumage consists of a distinctive powder-blue head and neck, orange frontal lobe and a red bill. (Photo by Mia Surakka/Solent News)

A Pataxo woman listens to her cell phone as she waits for the start of the Indigenous people's meeting with Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as part of the 18th annual Free Land Indigenous Camp, in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. (Photo by Eraldo Peres/AP Photo)

Fishermen catch fish at Mao'er lake at the start of winter fishing season which is a local custom to welcome the new year on December 29, 2018 in Huaian, Jiangsu Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

People visit the artwork titled Seven Magic Mountains by artist Ugo Rondinone, Wednesday, May 11, 2016, near Jean, Nev. The artwork was recently completed in the desert south of Las Vegas. (Photo by John Locher/AP Photo)

Enjoying a tickle from her keeper, an orphaned orangutan at the SOCP Quarantine Centre in Sumatra, Indonesia on March 20, 2016. The island’s orangutan population has been devastated in recent years as the forest areas are destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. (Photo by Jami Tarris/Barcroft Media)