National Geographic invites photographers from around the world to enter the 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest. The grand-prize winner will receive $10,000 (USD) and a trip to National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., to participate in the annual National Geographic Photography Seminar in January 2014. Photo: “We just want to move to search to the Leopard at that morning but we found a group of giraffes come toward a small lake and start drinking it was a nice moment when the Giraffe finish from drinking and leave a letters “S” with motion in the air”. (Photo and caption by Majed Ali/National Geographic Photography Contest)

A member of the Grupa Magnifica acrobatics club poses for a photo on the Baltic Sea beach during sunset in the town of Leba, Pomeranian region, on August 6, 2024. (Photo by Sergei Gapon/AFP Photo)

A greater bird of paradise (Paradisaea apoda) displaying in Badigaki Forest, Wokam Island (Aru Islands, Indonesia). Found here in Aru and on adjacent New Guinea, the greater bird of paradise represents about 40 different species of birds of paradise that depend on intact rainforest across the New Guinea region spanning eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. With more than 80% of forest cover still intact, this region represents the largest remaining block of rainforest in the entire Asia-Pacific. (Photo by Tim Laman/naturepl.com/LDY Agency)

Aerial photo taken on April 10, 2022 shows the construction site of Haikou duty-free shopping complex in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province. With a total construction area of about 926,000 square meters, the Haikou duty-free shopping complex project is expected to be officially put into use this year. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

An Indian street vendor selling bananas naps on his fruit cart at the roadside in New Delhi on June 3, 2015. (Photo by Money Sharma/AFP Photo)

Makoto Chino eats a purple haze carrot as he works harvesting the morning's vegetables and fruit from his family's farm in Rancho Santa Fe, California August 12, 2014. The gravitational pull of Chino Farm is legendary. Since they don't ship, everyone – whether a top chef or a traveling foodie or a local resident – comes to the farm stand, simply called “Vegetable Shop”, on a dusty corner of this affluent San Diego County town, hemmed in by sprawling housing estates. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

Revelers dance at the Old Settler's Music Festival in Driftwood, Texas, U.S. on April 22, 2017. (Photo by Mohammad Khursheed/Reuters)

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)