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)

Hundreds of flamingos take flight in the Rift Valley in East Africa early September 2024. The birds gather in the region’s saline lakes to eat the blue-green algae that grows in abundance. The red-orange pigment in the algae is what gives them their distinctive pink plumage. They also use the site to breed. (Photo by Alexandre and Chloe Bes/Naturagency/Solent News)

A skater observes pancakes snow on the frozen Lake des Rousses in Les Rousses, central-eastern France, on January 1, 2025. This phenomenon forms when slushy ice in water clumps into round, pancake-like shapes due to waves or currents. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP Photo)

Boats moored in the middle of Dal lake are silhouetted against the setting sun on January 15, 2018 in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian administered Kashmir, India. Kashmir, the Muslim majority state, known as the “Paradise on Earth” has for centuries captured the imagination of many writers, poets and film makers and is integral to the tourist trade. Kashmir has been a contested land between nuclear neighbors India and Pakistan since 1947, the year both the countries attained freedom from the British rule. (Photo by Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)

Young women wearing facemasks and traditional costumes of Song dynasty and Tang dynasty are seated on a bench in a park next to the East Lake in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on May 17, 2020. The Guardian picture desk has chosen on December 17, 2020, the AFP photojournalist Hector Retamal as “Agency Photographer of the Year 2020” for his coverage of the novel coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP Photo)

A long exposure image shows star trails from the abandoned submerged orthodox church of St. Nicholas without roof, submerged in the Mavrovo Lake, near Mavrovi Anovi, North Macedonia, 17 March 2019. Constructed in 1850 and submerged in 1952 due to the construction of the hydro system Mavrovo, the church St. Nicholas continues to attract the attention of almost every visitor as it peaks from the water. (Photo by Georgi Licovski/EPA/EFE)

The deserts of Argentina take on a starring role in this photographer’s breathtaking Milky Way shots. Amateur snapper Gonzalo Javier Santile, 46, spent the last two years capturing these rare shots of the galaxy as it arced over deserts in Salta Cafayate, Cordoba Valle de Punilla, Provincia de Buenos Aires and the Rio Negro province. In his pictures, the Milky Way can be admired as it towers over canyons, cacti, bushes, and even small brooks and lakes. (Photo by Gonzalo Javier Santile/Caters News Agency)

Performers on boats take part in the Qintong Boat Festival at Qin Lake National Wetland Park on April 6, 2019 in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province of China. The boat festival is held around the Qingming Festival every year, and up to 10,000 participants from nearby villages and towns, with more than 500 boats, took part in the event this year. (Photo by Tang Dehong/VCG via Getty Images)