Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

Spectators pass through security screening ahead of the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square in New York, on Sunday, December 31, 2017. (Photo by Peter Morgan/AP Photo)

Max Niedermaier of Germany collides with uncontrolled motorcycle of Niclas Svensson of Sweden during Astana Expo FIM Ice Speedway Gladiators World Championship at the Medeo rink in Almaty, Kazakhstan, February 18, 2017. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

Riot police runs as a woman falls down during a May Day rally in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, Germany, 01 May 2016. (Photo by Kay Nietfeld/EPA)

(L-R) Ryan Regez of Switzerland, Tyler Wallasch of USA, Sandro Siebenhofer of Austria and Ferdinand Dorsch of Germany during the men's quarterfinal heat 4 during the men's Ski Cross final at the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup event in Idre, Sweden 23 January 2021. (Photo by Pontus Lundahl/EPA/EFE)

Women dressed in traditional Chinese costumes wait perform in celebration of the Chinese New Year at the Nankinmachi square, China Town on February 8, 2016 in Kobe, Japan. In Nankinmachi, the district known as Kobe Chinatown, tourists enjoyed Chinese food, lion dance and the parade organized to celebrate the Lunar New Year. (Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)

A mahout removes the prosthetic from Motala, age 50, at the Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE) elephant hospital in the Mae Yao National Reserve August 29, 2011 Lampang,Thailand. Motala lost a foot many years back after stepping on a land mine and now is on her third prosthetic, as they need to be changed according to the weight of the elephant. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 30, 2014, a dragonfly sits on the nose of a Gharial, rare crocodile-like creatures, in the River Chambal near Bhopepura village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The narrow 250-mile stretch of the Chambal is a place of crocodiles and jackals, of river dolphins and the occasional wolf. Hundreds of species of birds, storks, geese, babblers, larks, falcons and so many more, nest along the river. Endangered birds lay small speckled eggs in tiny pits they dig in the sandbars. Gharials, rare crocodile-like creatures that look like they swaggered out of the Mesozoic Era, are commonplace here and nowhere else. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)