Giffords Circus’s show is touring the UK. Established in 2000, Giffords Circus is a small circus company that delivers circus / theatre fusion to the villages and market towns of the south west. It combines dance, comedy, horses and live music in a two-hour show, located on village greens in a small white tent surrounded by handmade burgundy and gold showman’s wagons. Photographer Tom Pilston goes behind the scenes to meet the performers. Here: The incredible, gravity-defying Konjowoch Troupe. (Photo by Tom Pilston/The Guardian)

Pallas' s cat kittens with theit mother in an enclosure at the Novosibirsk Zoo, Novosibirsk, Russia on July 11, 2018. Pallas' s cat, also known as manul, is a small wild cat native to montane steppes of the Central Asia and listed as an endangered species. (Photo by Kirill Kukhmar/TASS)

Tropical acrobatics by Adrià López Baucells in Manaus, Brazil. An unidentified South American marsupial, although the characteristic black markings on its face indicate it may be a mouse opossum. These small creatures are nocturnal and feed on bugs, fruit and bird eggs. (Photo by Adrià López Baucells/2019 Royal Society of Biology Photography Competition)

An otter reaches for a snack from a customer at an otter cafe in Tokyo. Asian small-clawed otters are increasingly popular as novelty pets, particularly in Japan. Now international trade in the species may be banned. (Photo by Noriko Hayashi/The New York Times)

A small meadow pipit (left) is run off her feet as she tries to keep up with the demanding feeding schedule of an imposter - a larger cuckoo (right) on the Isle of Mull, Scotland in August 2022. (Photo by Graeme Cuerden/Solent News & Photo Agency)

British puffin mid-flight with a beak full of small fish, their favourite foods being sand eels, herring and hake in Farne Islands, United Kingdom in June 2022. These pint-sized creatures are just 12 inches in height and have a wingspan of 25 inches. (Photo by Mathijs van Lisdonk/Media Drum Images)

Reuters photographer Siegfried Modola gained access to a circumcision ceremony in rural Kenya for young girls of the Pokot tribe, in Baringo County. Here: a Pokot girl, covered in animal skins, walks to a place where she will rest after being circumcised in a tribal ritual in a village about 80 kilometres from the town of Marigat in Baringo County, October 16, 2014. (Photo by Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

Girls prepare to take part in a mermaid lesson in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil May 28, 2017. Women in Brazil are not unique in their affinity for mermaiding. Classes are held as far away as Texas and some folks wonder if mermaiding will be the next fitness craze. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/Reuters)