Hitching a ride: Crow gets a lift from an owl on its way to top wildlife photography prize

Sky ride: As this crow mobs a great horned owl it appears momentarily to be hitching a lift from the larger bird


The extraordinarily arresting image of a crow apparently riding on the back of an owl was only, in the end, a runner up in the prestigious Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

The picture - entitled The Mobster - was taken by American photographer Jim Neiger. He has been photographing the birds on his home patch in Florida for a number of years and has got to know exactly where to find certain individuals, including a pair of great horned owls.

One evening, just before sunset, he was focusing on one of the owls when a fish crow suddenly appeared above it and dived down, jabbing the owl with its feet. 'I got this image the instant before the crow made contact, says Jim. The owl was obviously used to being mobbed. It barely flinched, shrugged off the crow and continued on its flight.'

Fergus Gill from Scotland won the young photographers category for the second year in a row. His image of a fieldfare, The Frozen Moment, was judged to be the most memorable of all the pictures by photographers aged 17 or under.

Living in rural Perthshire, Fergus has been interested in nature since he was young and started taking photographs at the age of nine, when his father encouraged him to carry a camera to record what he saw.

Fergus has a second image, Eye Of The Bird, which has been highly commended in this year’s competition. At 14 he won first prize in his age category in the competition, which gave him the confidence to pursue nature photography as a serious interest.

He concentrates in particular on wildlife near his home and the vast majority of his photography, including his winning image this year, occurs in his own back garden.


Finding a dead bird by a waterhole in Zimbabwe's Mana Pools National Park, this young male baboon was almost circumspect, gazing at the body as though in deep thought


On Boxing Day 2009, temperatures were well below zero in Scotland and birds were desperate for food. Fergus wanted to capture the freezing feel of the day while showing the character of fieldfares in action.


The skilled brush and rich imagination of an artist could scarcely have painted a more perfect picture of a fieldfare, framed by winter berries and frozen in the act of both flight and song.

So it is no surprise that this stunning snapshot saw Fergus named Veolia Environment Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year. The 18-year-old has already seen his work featured in national newspapers. Judges at the Natural History Museum in London said his picture, taken when he was only 17, was 'a winning gem'
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Speaking about Fergus’ winning image, Mark Carwardine says, ‘The hovering fieldfare is posed as an artist might paint it, the delicate yellow of the frozen berries echoing its breast feathers. A winning gem of a picture.’


Backbiting: Andrew Schoeman's playful Lion And His Little Nipper was highly commended in the Mammal Behaviour category.


Crash Dive: Andrew Parkinson's picture The Drop was Highly Commended in the animals in their environment category


Selected from tens of thousands of entries from across the globe, the images were judged to be the best of all those entered in the 2010 competition by a judging panel that included some of the world’s most respected nature photographers and wildlife experts.

These images will join more than 100 other prize-winning photographs from the competition’s 18 categories in a visually stunning and inspiring exhibition that débuts at the Natural History Museum on 22 October 2010. It will then tour nationally and internationally after its launch in the capital.

A commemorative book, Wildlife Photographer of the Year Portfolio 20, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox and published by the Natural History Museum, will be available from 21 October 2010, priced £25. The book contains all of the winning and commended images from this year’s competition.



And the winner: Bence Mate spent hours observing the behaviour of leaf-cutter ants in Costa Rica to get this picture, which was judged overall winner


Now in its 46th year, the competition is run by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine and is sponsored by French company Veolia Environnement. It is an international leader in the artistic representation of the natural world and a competition that photographers worldwide aspire to win.

Photographers can enter next year’s competition online between12 January and18 March 2011. For further details about the competition and its various categories, or to enter online, visit www.nhm.ac.uk/wildphoto


source: dailymail