RUN by the Natural History Museum in London, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards select the best animal kingdom moments caught on camera each year.

And of this year’s winners, three of the acclaimed artists have come from Spain.

Winner of the Behaviour: Birds category, Jose Luis Ruiz Jimenez spent hours in chest-high water in Brozas, Extremadura, waiting to get a shot of this great crested grebe family.

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With soft light and muted reflections, an intimate moment of a great crested grebe family by Jose Luis Ruiz Jiménez (@joluruizjimen) from Spain wins #WPY56's Behaviour: Birds category When one parent emerged with damp feathers and a fish, Jose Luis was lucky that not a breath of wind rippled the water. A stripy-headed chick stretched out of its sanctuary, open-beaked, to claim the tasty meal. Grebes are at their most elegant in the breeding season when ornate plumage is used in courting. They build a nest of aquatic plant material, often among reeds at the edge of shallow water. Chicks venture out within just a few hours of hatching, hitching a snug ride on a parent’s back. – The Behaviours categories award images that portray memorable, unusual or dramatic behaviour, and that add to our understanding of the nature of a species. Follow the link in our bio to find out more about our competition categories and to enter your images to the fifty-seventh Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. #WPY56 #Grebe #GreatCrestedGrebe #Birding #BirdPhotography #Birder #WildlifePhotographerOfTheYear #Biodiversity #Anthropocene #NaturePhotography #WildlifePhotography #Conservation #NaturalHistoryMuseum

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Jaime Culebras, winner of the Behaviour: Amphibians and Reptiles category, was similarly determined and walked for hours in Ecuador’s Andes to capture the first ever image of a Manduriacu glass frog feeding.

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(ESPAN?OL EN COMENTARIOS) Thank you all so much for the congratulations, I really feel overwhelmed! It's a little bit difficult to explain all I'm thinking after being winner and highly commended in the Category "Behaviour: #Amphibians and Reptiles" of the @nhm_wpy. I have spent the last 8 years, looking for, researching and photographing amphibians and reptiles in the jungle, and an enormous part of that time has been dedicated to the "#Glassfrogs". This picture represents many years trying to catch a good moment of feeding behaviour, so this is a happiness point with this photo. On the other hand, I have a mixture of feelings, where sadness is important, because this is a species described in 2019, but it's already Critically #Endangered. Why? Because the situation in #Ecuador, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, is really critical due to the extreme obsession with mining along ALL the Ecuadorian Tropical #Andes, where constitutional and #nature rights are being violated, continually. If we don't change now, if we don't understand that this way of economic development while our planet is destroyed is a big mistake, we'll be condemning ourselves and the next generation to a future full of misery. After this #pandemic, we really need to reconsider, it's the time to strengthen a green mind, the greatest responsibility of each one of us. This picture was taken in @riomanduriacureserve. Finally, this photo or any other would be possible without a 4-legged tripod, who are always in the near and far present. @photowildlifetours #photowildlifetours #photowildlife #bbcearth #earthcapture @bbcearth #ourplanet #amphibian @amphibiansurvivalalliance #amphibiansofinstagram #frog #wildlifephotography #amphibianphotography #instaphoto #photooftheday #naturephotography #naturelovers #nature #earthlovers #earth #amazinganimals #herpetology #herping #macrophotography #macro @natural_history_museum @amphibiansurvivalalliance @racingextinction #wpy #wpy57

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And the future looks bright for the next generation of Spanish photographers as Andres Luis Dominguez Blanco won the 10 years and under category with his shot of this European stonechat bird in Andalucia.

Birds
AWARDS: The moment Blanco won

Kate Middleton, patron of the National History Museum, presented the highest accolade, Wildlife Photographer of the Year, at the virtual online awards ceremony last week.

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We’re thrilled to announce Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge (@kensingtonroyal), Patron of the Natural History Museum (@natural_history_museum), will reveal this year's winner of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year award at our first virtual awards ceremony, live-streamed from the heart of the Museum on Tuesday 13 October at 20.00 BST. Selected from nearly 50,000 entries, HRH The Duchess of Cambridge will be announcing this year’s Grand Title winner. Viewers of the online awards ceremony will be treated to an evening of celebration, exploring the beauty and rich diversity of nature as the winners of each of category are announced. Follow the link in our bio to find out how to watch the live stream and get involved and, if you’re in London, to book your tickets for this year's #WPY56 exhibition at the Natural History Museum. #WildlifePhotographerOfTheYear #NaturalHistoryMuseum #London #HintzeHall

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