From my little corner of the world

Small white butterflies – the most common butterfly in this year’s British count, and one of the species that experienced a rise in numbers thanks to good weather.

A black bear scratches his back in the Rocky Mountain wilderness, Canada

The vision by Jan van der Greef, The Netherlands – winner, Black and White

Perfectly balanced, its wings vibrating, its tail opening and closing, with its tiny feet touching the spike for just an instant, an eastern mountaineer hummingbird siphons nectar from the florets of a red-hot-poker plant. For a number of days Jan had observed the birds in the garden of his hotel in southern Peru. He noticed that an eastern mountaineer – a species found only in Peru– would rotate around the red-hot-poker as it fed. As it moved behind a spike and its tail closed, a beautiful cross appeared.

Kuhirwa mourns her baby by Ricardo Núñez Montero, Spain – winner, Behaviour: mammals

Kuhirwa, a young female of the Nkuringo mountain gorilla family in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, would not give up on her dead baby. What Ricardo first thought to be a bundle of roots turned out to be the tiny corpse. Guides told him that she had given birth during bad weather and the baby probably died of cold. At first Kuhirwa had cuddled and groomed the body, carrying it piggyback. Weeks later, she started to eat what was left of the corpse, behaviour the guide had only seen once before.

A herd of American bison of genetically pure breed that have been reproduced as part of a bison and grassland conservation program at El Uno ranch in Chihuahua state, Mexico

Mud-rolling mud-dauber by Georgina Steytler, Australia – winner, Behaviour: invertebrates

It was a hot summer day, and the waterhole at Walyormouring Nature Reserve, Western Australia, was buzzing. Georgina had got there early to photograph birds, but her attention was stolen by the industrious mud-dauber wasps. They were females, digging in the soft mud at the water’s edge, then rolling the mud into balls to create egg chambers for their nearby nests. A female builds her external nest completely out of mud, cylindrical chamber by chamber, which cement together as the mud hardens.

A black bear scratches his back in the Rocky Mountain wilderness, Canada

Humpback whale near the Broughton Archipelago, Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada.

The golden couple by Marsel van Oosten, The Netherlands – grand title winner, Animal portraits

A male Qinling golden snub-nosed monkey rests on a stone, joined by a female from his group. Both are watching an altercation down the valley between the lead males of two other groups in the 50-strong troop. It’s spring in the temperate forest of China’s Qinling mountains, the only place where these endangered monkeys live. To show both a male’s beautiful pelage and striking blue face, Marsel had to shoot at an angle from the back. It took many days observing the group to achieve his goal.