Andrew Parkinson, animal behaviour category winner: Crepuscular Contentment, Derbyshire. “In 15 years of working with badgers I’ve never seen a badger sit out in the open to have a scratch. I was sat concealed behind a tree and downwind so it was especially nice that the badger had his back to me, demonstrating just how inconspicuous and inconsequential my presence was”. (Photo by Andrew Parkinson/British Wildlife Photography Awards 2017)

Keep your eyes peeled: A Chinese teenager slipped and stabbed himself in the face with a 7cm knife while peeling an apple. Ren Hanzhi's father recalled: “He was walking to the sofa while peeling the apple. Suddenly he slipped down and his face hit onto the sharp knife. I dared not pull out the knife as my son was screaming”. The nearest hospital referred the 13-year-old to a larger unit. Chief surgeon Peng Liwei, who operated to remove the knife, commented: “It's shocking. The knife, which is more than 20cm long, penetrated 7cm into his face. The surgery was successful and the patient could recover fully in around a month”. (Photo by Rex Features)

Invasion (laser girls) 2017. “I’m always thinking about my art practice, so any experience I have may spike a visual when I have an idea in mind. An example is that, when I was thinking about the Invasion series, I was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds (1963). I love Hitchcock’s other movies and have been contemplating a series based on Rear Window (1954). I also find inspiration outside the cinema in music clips and magazines”. (Photo by Michael Cook/Perimeter Books)

“The Rothschild Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi) is among the most endangered giraffe subspecies with only a few hundred members in the wild. It is named after the famous family of the Tring Museum's founder, Lord Walter Rothschild, and is also known as the Baringo Giraffe, after the Lake Baringo area of Kenya, or as the Ugandan Giraffe. All of those that are living in the wild are in protected areas in Kenya and Uganda. (Recently it has been proposed that the Rothschild Giraffe is actually a separate species from other giraffes and not a giraffe subspecies).” – Wikipedia

Photo: Margaret, the 10-day-old Giraffestands beside Chester Zoo keeper Tim Rowlands on January 30, 2008, in Chester, England. Margaret is the first Rothschild giraffe born at the zoo. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Employees conduct a final check to fix any cavities in the seams of balls inside the soccer ball factory that produces official match balls for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, in Sialkot, Punjab province May 16, 2014. It was when he felt the roar of the crowd at the 2006 World Cup in Germany that Pakistani factory owner Khawaja Akhtar first dreamt up a goal of his own: to manufacture the ball for the biggest soccer tournament on the planet. Last year he finally got his chance – but only 33 days to make it happen. (Photo by Sara Farid/Reuters)

The winners of The London’s Natural History Museum's prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year for 2013 have finally been unveiled. Selected from almost 43,000 entries from 96 countries, the winners offer a glimpse of the stunning array of natural beauty on our planet. Photo: Canada: “Lucky pounce”. “Anticipating the pounce – that was the hardest part”, says Connor, who had come to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA, in search of wildlife as much as the spectacular landscape. He had found this fox, his first ever, on his last day in the park. It was so absorbed in hunting that Connor had plenty of time to get out of the car and settle behind a rock. It quartered the grassland, back and forth, and then started staring intently at a patch of ground, giving Connor just enough warning of the action to come. When it sprung up, Connor got his shot. And when it landed, the fox got his mouse. (Photo by Connor Stefanison/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013)

“I have been photographing this group of urban foxes in Bristol for over 12 months; what started off as a chance encounter has become an obsession for me and has changed my feelings and attitudes towards urban foxes forever...”. – Ian Wade. (Photo by Ian Wade)

“Hard for Life”. (Photo by Theo Vu Xuan/Sony World Photography Awards/WENN.com)