Why is that bird chasing a butterfly? How did a photographer get this close to a family of lynx in the Yukon? What is that strange orb the insect is looking at? And what was the deal with that napping baby monkey?

In nature photography, every image has a story behind it, and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has collected some of the world’s best every year since 1965.

The organizer, London’s Natural History Museum, will display the winners starting Oct. 11, with a Canadian exhibition at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum from Dec. 21 to May 5. Until then, here are some of the winners and Canadian entries that earned honorable mentions.

The Swarm of Life

Taken on Vancouver Island by Shane Gross • Winner, Adult Grand Title and Wetlands: The Bigger Picture category

A mass of western toad tadpoles rippled past as Shane Gross, a Canadian marine conservation photojournalist, snorkelled beneath the lily pads of B.C.’s Cedar Lake. Mr. Gross stayed immersed for hours to ensure that the silt and algae on the lake bottom would not be disturbed and cloud the shot.

The Demolition Squad

Taken in Hessen, Germany, by Ingo Arndt • Winner, Behaviour: Invertebrates

This blue ground beetle is already dead, and the red wood ants are doing an efficient job dismembering it. These ants largely feed on honeydew from aphids, but can kill larger insects to get much-needed protein. Lying down to capture the beetle's fate left Mr. Arndt “full of ant,” he says.

Tiger in Town

Taken in India by Robin Darius Conz • Winner, Urban Wildlife

Aided by a drone, German photographer Robin Darius Conz followed this tiger with a documentary team studying the Western Ghats, a protected area of Tamil Nadu state. This is among the most biodiverse landscapes in India, but even here, human activity is ever-present: The town in the background was once a forest.

The Serengeti of the Sea

Taken off the coast of California by Sage Ono • Winner, Rising Star Portfolio

These eggs belong to a tube-snout, one of the fish species that live in the kelp forests of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The kelp's golden air sacs keep the plant's green, serrated fronds afloat in the sunlight. Sage Ono's grandfather, a marine biologist, kindled a passion for underwater photography that led him to move to the California coast where these forests grow.

Dusting for New Evidence

Taken in London by Britta Jaschinski • Winner, Photojournalism

At London’s Heathrow airport, a crime-scene investigator from the Metropolitan Police checks a confiscated tusk for fingerprints. New forms of magnetic powder can reveal prints up to 28 days after an item was touched. The International Fund for Animal Welfare has given out 200 forensic kits to 40 countries to track animal contraband to its sources.

Wetland Wrestle

Taken in Brazil by Karine Aigner • Winner, Behaviour: Amphibians and Reptiles

It’s not clear who the aggressor is here: The yacaré caiman, which preys on snakes, or the yellow anaconda coiled around its snout. The American photographer was on a tour group in Mato Grosso when she spotted the reptiles mid-struggle. On the anaconda’s back are two tabanids, blood-sucking horseflies known to target reptiles.

Dolphins of the Forest

From an assignment in Brazil and Colombia by Thomas Peschak • Winner, Photojournalist Story

Amazon river dolphins have adapted to explore the seasonally flooded forests of South America, where Indigenous people have come to both revere and fear them: Some think they can take human form, others that they are fish-stealers that should be killed. In this area, locals allow tourists to see the dolphins, creating a risk that animals fed by humans will become unhealthy and avoid learning to hunt for themselves.

Recording by Hand

Taken in Rgielsko, Poland, by Liwia Pawłowska • Winner, Impact Award

Bird-banding – or bird-ringing, as Britons call it – is a vital conservation practice that Liwia Pawłowska has been photographing since she was nine years old. Staff and volunteers record a bird’s size, age, sex and other details that help scientists keep track of populations and migration. This common whitethroat cannot read what is being written about it, but seems fascinated all the same.

Old Man of the Glen

Taken in Scotland by Fortunato Gatto • Winner, Plants and Fungi

Italian photographer Fortunato Gatto often goes to the Glen Affric pine woods of the Scottish Highlands west of Loch Ness. According to analysis of pollen in the sediment, this forest has stood for at least 8,300 years. The beard lichen on a gnarled birch tree indicates that air pollution is relatively low here.

Practice Makes Perfect

Taken in Los Angeles by Jack Zhi • Winner, Behaviour: Birds

This young peregrine falcon is practising its hunting skills on a butterfly near its sea-cliff nest in Los Angeles. To survive to adulthood, falcons need excellent aim and reflexes: Tests have shown the birds can stoop, or drop down on prey from above, at more than 300 kilometres an hour.

Frontier of the Lynx

Taken in Russia by Igor Metelskiy • Winner, Animals in their Environment

It took more than six months of work to catch this image of a Russian lynx’s early-evening relaxation in Primorsky Krai, a far eastern region near the borders of China and North Korea. Remoteness and fickle weather made access difficult, but the photographer persisted, laying automatic camera gear near footprints of potential prey.

The Artful Crow

Taken in Basel, Switzerland, by Jiří Hřebíček • Winner, Natural Artistry

Czech photographer Jiří Hřebíček uses his local park in Basel as a place to experiment with camera techniques. For this shot of a carrion crow, he chose a long shutter speed and moved the camera in different directions.

A Diet of Deadly Plastic

Taken in Australia by Justin Gilligan • Winner, Oceans: The Bigger Picture

The 403 pieces of plastic in this mosaic came from a dead flesh-footed shearwater recovered by Adrift Lab, whose work the photographer has followed for several years. On Lord Howe Island, a breeding ground far off the east coast of Australia, the lab found most adult shearwaters and all fledglings had plastic in their systems, which can scar the linings of their digestive tracts.

Hope for the Ninu

Taken in Australia by Jannico Kelk • Winner, Impact Award

The ninu, a rabbit-sized marsupial also called the greater bilby, was brought to near-extinction by cats, foxes and other predators that settlers introduced to Australia. Today, many are thriving in reserves, like this one near Roxby Downs. Jannico Kelk spent morning after morning searching here for ninu footprints; finding some near a burrow, he set up automated camera gear and waited.

Under the Waterline

Taken in Antarctica by Matthew Smith • Winner, Underwater

“When it looked straight into the lens barrel, I knew I had something good,” Australia-based photographer Matthew Smith says of his first-ever encounter with a leopard seal in Paradise Harbour, on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula. He had custom-made an extension to his camera housing to get a split image like this.

A Tranquil Moment

Taken in Sri Lanka by Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod • Winner, Behaviour: Mammals

After a morning looking for birds and leopards in Wilpattu National Park, the photographer realized a troop of toque macaques was on the move above him. Between feeding sessions, this young one caught a nap, unaware of the telephoto lens capturing the moment. A macaque’s life is not always so tranquil: Increasingly, many are shot, snared and poisoned by farmers whose plantations encroach on the monkeys’ habitat.

On Watch

Taken in Yukon by John E. Marriott • Winner, Animal Portraits

A veteran Canadian wildlife photographer tracked this family of lynx through the Yukon for almost a week with snowshoes and light camera gear, until fresh tracks led him close enough for this shot. The adult rested as its young sheltered from the cold wind behind it.

Free as a Bird

Taken in Spain by Alberto Román Gómez • Winner, 10 Years and Under

At the edge of Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, young Alberto looked from the window of his father’s car and saw a stonechat bird flying back and forth, gathering insects. The contrast between the delicate bird and heavy chain was striking, and it seemed as if the stonechat were a young guardian overseeing its territory. The bird was too young to develop its adult call, which sounds like stones tapping together.

Life Under Dead Wood

Taken in Germany by Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas • Winner, Youth Grand Title and 15-17 Years category

Springtails can leap away from danger in a split-second, so this young photographer had to move quickly when he uncovered one under a log in Berlin, along with the round fruiting body of a slime mold. A technique called focus stacking yielded this sharp image, combined from 36 images with different areas in focus. Springtails, insects that grow to barely two millimetres long, help forest floors to decompose as they feed on fungi and microorganisms.

An Evening Meal

Taken in California by Parham Pourahmad • Winner, 11-14 Years

This young Cooper’s hawk has a squirrel for dinner at Ed R. Levin County Park near San Jose, where Parham Pourahmad spent his summer weekends exploring how rich wildlife can co-exist with a busy city. Cooper’s hawks live in rural and urban areas alike from southern Canada to central Mexico.

BONUS: Canadian photographers who earned honorable mentions

When Worlds Collide

Taken in Toronto by Patricia Seaton Homonylo • Highly Commended, Photojournalism

These 3,900 birds, comprising 103 species, perished in window strikes across Greater Toronto in 2022. Members of the Fatal Light Awareness Program collected and arranged the bodies to illustrate the deadly toll of lit windows at night, which disorient birds and kill millions of them nationwide each year. Patricia Seaton Homonylo won 2024’s Bird Photographer of the Year award for this shot.

Late Night Fishing

Taken in Yukon by Geoffrey Reynaud • Highly Commended, Animal Portraits

This Vancouver photographer had tried once before to photograph the “ice bears” of the Yukon, but on the second trip, he hit paydirt with this photo. He slept in his car as temperatures fell to below -10 when a grizzly, its fur frozen, stepped into the camera trap. Normally, bears would be in hibernation at this time of year, but seeping groundwater stops the ice from forming, leaving room for salmon to keep swimming.

The Disappearing Ice Cap

Taken in Norway by Thomas Vijayan • Highly Commended, Oceans: The Bigger Picture

This panorama of the Bråsvellbreen glacier is stitched together from 26 frames, capturing both the scale of the Austfonna ice cap and the summer meltwater plunging over its edge. This ice dome is one of several covering the Svalbard archipelago, one of the most northerly inhabited places in the world. In some climate-change scenarios, the glaciers could be gone within 400 years.

Double Helping

Taken in Gaspé by Lory-Antoine Cantin • Highly Commended, 11–14 Years

This red fox dropped its meal at the sight of Lory-Antoine Cantin in Quebec’s Forillon National Park, but picked it up again after the photographer kept his distance to give it some space. Foxes have excellent eyesight, hearing and senses of smell.

Food Fight

Taken in England by Vince Maidens • Highly Commended, Behaviour: Birds

“Absolute chaos” ensued at this barn-owl nest when a foraging parent brought home a vole, Vince Maidens says. Over three months, the Ontario-based photographer spent hundreds of hours monitoring the family at Yorkshire Dales National Park. While he kept his distance, they knew he was there: “If you’re working with a species that can hear your heartbeat, it isn’t really going to help.”

Midnight Ramblers

Taken in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., by Andrew Interisano • Highly Commended, Urban Wildlife

Andrew Interisano got to know some local coyotes during the pandemic. On a cold spring night, they were back in the neighbourhood as a pack yipped and howled eerily in the distance. Coyotes are not normally a risk to humans, but conflict is possible when food sources entice them into urban areas.