Wildlife Photographer Of The Year: Tadpoles take the top prize from almost 60,000 entries of world’s greatest animal and nature pictures
A marine conservation photojournalist’s “magical” picture shining a light on the underwater world of a tadpole species has earned him the title of Wildlife Photographer Of The Year.
Shane Gross, from Canada, captured the western toad tadpoles while snorkelling through lily pads in Cedar Lake on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
He managed to snap a cloud of the amphibians, which are a near-threatened species due to habitat destruction and predators, while avoiding the visibility-reducing layers of silt and algae covering the bottom.
Titled The Swarm Of Life, the photograph has been crowned the winner of the Natural History Museum’s prestigious Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2024 competition out of a record-breaking 59,228 entries, from 117 countries and territories.
Kathy Moran, chair of the jury, said they were “captivated by the mix of light, energy and connectivity between the environment and the tadpoles”.
This is the first time the species has been featured in the competition, which is now in its 60th year, she added.
Life Under Dead Wood
Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, from Germany, was awarded the title of Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year, for an up-close image featuring slime mould on the right, and a macroscopic animal called a springtail on the left, taken in Berlin.
Tinker-Tsavalas used a technique called focus stacking, combining 36 images with different areas of focus together.
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Judges said it showed great skill and “incredible attention to detail, patience and perseverance”.
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the competition, impact awards for both adult and young photographers were introduced this year, recognising conservation success.
Recording By Hand
The young impact award was given to Liwia Pawłowska, from Poland, for her image of a common whitethroat taken during a bird ringing, a technique that records length, sex, condition and age to help scientists monitor populations and track migration.
Hope For The Ninu
In the adult category, Australian photographer Jannico Kelk picked up the prize for a picture of a greater bilby, a small marsupial also referred to as the ninu, which was one near extinction due to predators such as foxes and cats. Fenced reserves, however, have allowed the population to grow.
Here are the other category winners.
Free As A Bird – Alberto Roman Gomez, Spain (10 and under)
Alberto watched from the window of his father’s car at the edge of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, in Cadiz, Andalusia, to take this picture – managing to capture the stonechat bird as it was perched, between trips to gather insects.
An Evening Meal – Parham Pourahmad, USA (11-14)
Parham visited the Ed R Levin County Park in Milpitas, California, most weekends over a summer to take photographs showing the wildlife living in a busy city park. This picture shows a young Cooper’s hawk eating a squirrel in the last rays of sunset.
Frontier of the Lynx – Igor Metelskiy, Russia
A lynx stretches in the early evening sunshine in the Lazovsky District in Primorsky Krai, Russia. The remote location and changing weather conditions meant access was tricky, and it took more than six months of waiting for Metelskiy to capture the image of the elusive animal.
On Watch – John E Marriott, Canada
This image also features a lynx, this one with its fully grown young sheltering from the wind behind it. Marriott had tracked the family group for almost a week through snowy forests in Yukon.
Practice Makes Perfect – Jack Zhi, USA
A young falcon practises its hunting skills on a butterfly above its sea-cliff nest. This was taken in an area in Los Angeles, California, visited by Zhi over the past eight years.
A Tranquil Moment – Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod, Sri Lanka
This picture shows a young toque macaque sleeping in an adult’s arms, taken after a morning of photographing birds and leopards at the Wilpattu National Park. Vinod spotted a troop of the macaques moving through trees above, and used a telephoto lens to frame this moment as a young monkey slept between feeds.
Wetland Wrestle – Karine Aigner, USA
Karine Aigner was leading a tour group when she noticed an odd shape in the water along the Transpantaneira Highway, in Mato Grosso, Brazil – binoculars confirmed she was looking at a flash of a yellow anaconda, coiling itself around the snout of a yacare caiman.
The Demolition Squad – Ingo Arndt, Germany
Arndt’s image shows the dismemberment of a blue ground beetle by red wood ants – carving the dead animal into pieces tiny enough to fit through the entrance to their nest in Hessen, Germany.
The Artful Crow – Jiri Hrebicek, Czech Republic
This perching carrion crow, pictured in Basel, Switzerland, looks almost like an impressionist painting, judges said. To create the effect, Hrebicek moved his camera in different directions, while using a long shutter speed.
A Diet of Deadly Plastic – Justin Gilligan, Australia
A mosaic created from some 403 pieces of plastic found inside the digestive tract of a dead flesh-footed shearwater, taken on Lord Howe Island, New South Wales. Gilligan took the picture while documenting the work of Adrift Lab, which brings biologists from different countries together to study the impact of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems.
Old Man of the Glen – Fortunato Gatto, Italy
Gatto captured these pale “old man’s beard’ lichens on a gnarled birch tree in the pinewoods of Glen Affric, in the Scottish Highlands. The lichens indicate it as an area of minimal air pollution – in a forest which has stood for at least 8,300 years, according to pollen analysis.
Under the Waterline – Matthew Smith, UK/Australia
Smith used a specially made extension he designed for the front of his underwater camera housing to create this split image of a leopard seal beneath the Antarctic ice in Paradise Harbour. The young seal made several close, curious passes, he said. “When it looked straight into the lens barrel, I knew I had something good.”
Tiger in Town – Robin Darius Conz, Germany
A tiger sits on a hillside against the backdrop of a town where forests once grew in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, India. Conz was following the big cat as part of a documentary team filming the wildlife of the Western Ghats.
Dusting for New Evidence – Britta Jaschinski, Germany/UK
Jaschinski spent time at the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) border force department, where confiscated animal products are tested. This image shows a crime scene investigator from London’s Met Police dusting for prints on a confiscated tusk at Heathrow Airport.
Dolphins of the Forest – Thomas Peschak, Germany/South Africa
Peschak documents the relationship between endangered Amazon river dolphins, which are also known as botos or pink river dolphins, and the people with whom they share their home in the waters of both Brazil and Colombia.
The Serengeti of the Sea – Sage Ono, USA
Sage Ono decided to take up underwater photography after being inspired by stories told by his grandfather, a retired marine biologist. This image, taken in the kelp forests in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, California, shows tube-snout fish eggs sparkling next to the glowing kelp.
The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2024 exhibition opens at the Natural History Museum, London, on Friday 11 October
The Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle series premiered this morning – in which she talks about her life in California, her time spent living in Argentina and her love of food.
With Love, Meghan – an eight-part series on Netflix – had been delayed from a January release due to the Los Angeles wildfires.
The episodes, which last about 30 minutes each, feature a host of celebrity friends along with a few cameos from her husband, Prince Harry.
From her first jobs growing up to what she was like on the Suits set, here are some things we learnt about the duchess.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Mindy Kaling.
Pic: Netflix
‘I’m Sussex now’
One of Meghan’s guests is The Office star Mindy Kaling, who she bonds with over their lives as toddlers’ mums while putting together a tea party in the garden.
As they put sandwiches together for the tea, Meghan talks about her love of Jack In The Box – a classic US fast-food chain, to which Kaling responds: “I don’t think anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack In The Box and loves it.”
The duchess laughs and says: “It’s funny, you keep saying Meghan Markle, you know, I’m Sussex now.
“You have kids, and you go, ‘now I share my name with my children’… I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go ‘this is our family name, our little family name’.”
Similarities with Archie
During episode four, the duchess goes on a hike with her friend Delfina Blaquier, who is married to Argentinian polo star Nacho Figueras, and together they have a picnic with homemade focaccia bread.
The duchess reveals how she passed time during her childhood – and the similar traits her son, Archie, has: “As a kid, I was taking a bag of tea from the drawer in my house, putting it in a mason jar or probably an empty jar that once held spaghetti sauce and putting it in the sun, and sitting there… waiting for it to change colour.
“Funny enough, which Archie does now.”
Days before the show aired, in an interview with People magazine, the duchess said Archie had told her: “Mama, don’t work too hard” during filming.
She added the five-year-old helped with the clapperboard while visiting the set with his sister Lilibet and Harry.
Delfina Figueras and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Pic: Netflix
Life in Argentina
The two friends met through their husbands – “The moment we met, we bonded over our love of the outdoors and being in nature. We always hike together whenever she’s in town. And sometimes we let our husbands join us,” Meghan says.
Reflecting on when they first met, Meghan says: “What’s so funny is, I remember when we first met, and you were like: ‘Wait a minute, you speak Argentinian Spanish?’ But it’s such a pretty language because it sounds so musical.”
Her friend says: “When you started speaking Spanish and I recognised the Argentinian, I was blown away, because I didn’t know that…”
“That I’d lived there,” Meghan responds.
She adds: “When I lived in Argentina, I think the reason I loved it so much is because it reminded me of California in a lot of ways. Where you have the mountains and you have this joy of life and the joy of being outside.
“I was only there for a few months interning at the US Embassy, but I loved it.”
First jobs in doughnut and yoghurt shops – and some more childhood memories
In episode five, as Meghan hosts long-time friends, former Suits co-star Abigail Spencer and Kelly McKee Zajfen, she says that her first job was at Humphrey Yogart, a frozen yoghurt shop in Los Angeles playfully named after actor Humphrey Bogart.
That came after she told chef Roy Choi in episode three, as she presented him with doughnuts she prepared for him, that she once had a job at a doughnut shop.
“Doughnuts in general just remind me of my childhood,” she said.
“I once had a job at a little donut shop called Little Orbit Donuts. They made tiny, tiny, little mini donuts.”
She said she often helped them sell at craft venues, adding that doughnuts generally were a big part of her childhood.
“Growing up, driving down Highland to get to school, there was always a Yum Yum Donuts right there.”
“Highland and Melrose,” Choi clarifies.
“Exactly… is it still there?”
When Choi says it is, she responds: “Oh my god. I should go back in.”
In another episode, Kaling asks whether Meghan began cooking at home or picked it up later. Meghan replies: “I was a latch-key kid so I grew up with a lot of fast food and also a lot of TV tray dinners.
“It feels like such a different time but that was so normal with the microwavable kids meals.”
Life in Montecito house
Branden Aroyan and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Pic: Netflix
The lifestyle show, which was filmed in a California farmhouse rather than in her Montecito house, features her describing her every day life – including how it is a “daily” task to pick fruit when it’s in season at her home.
Episode one Hello Honey! features Meghan’s friend Daniel Martin as she prepares a “thoughtful guest basket”.
It begins with her harvesting honey from bees, saying: “The biggest thing is keeping a low tone – talk in our bee voice.”
With the help of a beekeeper, she talks about “trying to stay in the calm of it because it’s beautiful to be this connected”.
Harry is the king of eggs
When asked by Kaling about how best to season eggs, the duchess says: “I have a family, a husband, who no matter what meal is put in front of him before he tastes it puts salt on, so I try to under salt.”
Harry himself, it is later revealed, is something of an egg connoisseur.
Speaking to two close friends in a later episode, she says “H” is a “great cook” and makes “the best scrambled eggs”.
She further praises him by saying he generally makes “a really good breakfast”.
Bacon was the subject of discussions on more than one occasion during the series, with Meghan saying that whenever she cooks it the kitchen “becomes full of husband and three dogs”.
“It’s not my perfume that’s bringing them all in,” she jokes.
What the duchess was like during Suits
Meghan’s days of playing paralegal Rachel Zane in popular drama Suits came to an end in 2018, the year she married Harry.
But she has clearly remained close with co-star Abigail Spencer, who played Dana Scott.
In episode five, as the pair sat in Meghan’s garden alongside Kelly McKee Zajfen, Spencer reflected on what Meghan was like during the Suits days.
She said Meghan was “the head of morale on the show,” to which Meghan thanked her and added: “I liked to plan fun for everyone.”
Heart-warming moments of Meghan with beloved beagle
The whole series ends with a tribute to Meghan’s late dog, Guy, who featured prominently in several episodes.
One morning, the duchess is seen making bone-shaped peanut butter biscuits for the rescue beagle, who died shortly after filming wrapped, saying you can make them with leftover bacon from breakfast.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex with Guy. Pic: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex
She admitted there was “never” any leftovers in her house because “we eat a lot of it” – another reference to the Sussexes love of bacon.
“I would do anything for Guy, and he knows it,” she then says. “He can have whatever he wants ’cause he is whatever kind of guy you need him to be depending on the day. My sweet guy, my silly guy, my saucy little guy. Always my spoiled guy.”
Later, as she hands him a peanut butter cookie, she adds: “They provide us with unconditional love, so they get unconditional peanut butter dog biscuits. Why not?”
The Sussexes also have two other dogs – another rescue beagle named Mia and a black Labrador called Pula, who is seen trying to steal some of Meghan and her guests’ food at various points during the series.
Meghan’s ‘next chapter’
In the eighth and final episode, called Feels Like Home, Meghan prepares for Prince Harry to make an appearance.
She is putting together a brunch for family and friends to celebrate the “next chapter” in her life.
Sharing details of how she envisages the so-called “next chapter”, Meghan, wearing a blue maxi dress and putting the finishing touches to a spread of food outdoors, says: “Of course, my husband will be here, my mum will be here, my best friend since college, my community having a brunch in the sunshine with the people that I love, celebrating this next chapter of my life.”
Dolly Parton’s husband – who she married in a secret ceremony aged just 20 – has died.
The country music star’s website said Carl Dean died on Monday in Nashville.
Parton said in a statement: “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”
Dean was the inspiration behind Jolene, one of her biggest hits.
She said she wrote the song after a flirty bank clerk seemed to take an interest in him.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008.
“And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention.
“It was kinda like a running joke between us… So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
Parton, 78, said ‘words can’t do justice to the love we shared’. Pic: AP
The pair met outside the Wishy Washy launderette, where Parton was doing her washing, the day she moved to Nashville at age 18.
“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton said in 2016.
“He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
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Parton pictured performing at a Dallas Cowboys game in November 2023. Pic: Reuters
Parton said her record company had asked her to wait to get married but the couple tied the knot two years later, in May 1966.
Only her mother, the preacher and his wife were in attendance at the ceremony – held out of state so local papers wouldn’t report it.
Dean owned a paving business and famously shunned the limelight, so was very rarely seen in public with the star.
“A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” Parton joked in a 1984 interview with AP.
The couple never had any children, but he is survived by his brother and sister.
Anora has dominated the Academy Awards, winning five gongs including best picture.
The film’s star, Mikey Madison, who plays a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, took home the best actress award – a win that was not a total upset, but many had expected Demi Moore to scoop the prize for her performance in The Substance.
Anora filmmaker Sean Baker was named best director, and used his acceptance speech to make a plea for audiences to support cinemas, which he said were “a vital part of our culture” and at risk of being lost.
Both also thanked sex workers who consulted on the film, saying they could never have made it without them.
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Anora also won the Oscars for best original screenplay and best editing. Winning all four awards he was up for, Baker tied with Walt Disney’s record for the most Oscar wins by a single person in a single night – although Disney won his awards for multiple works, rather than a single film as Baker has done.
Adrien Brody won the best actor Oscar for playing Hungarian architect Lazlo Toth in architectural epic The Brutalist.
It was his second Academy Award win in the category some 22 years after his first, for The Pianist back in 2003.
Adrien Brody won the best actor award – his second Oscar – for his performance in The Brutalist. Pic: Reuters
Accepting his award in a lengthy speech, he paid tribute to his partner Georgina Chapman, who he said had “re-invigorated” his “self-worth” and “sense of value”.
Best cinematography also went to The Brutalist directror Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour epic, which also took home the prize for best original score.
Papal thriller Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, took just one award, for best adapted screenplay.
Kieran Culkin won best supporting actor. Pic: Reuters
Kieran Culkin took the first award of the night, best supporting actor, for his role in comedy drama A Real Pain, while the best supporting actress prize was won by Emilia Perez star Zoe Saldana, her first Oscar win and nomination.
One of the highest-grossing actresses ever, she cried out “Mommy, mommy”, on stage, explaining her entire family was there with her. She became tearful at the end of her speech as she spoke of being “a proud child of immigrant parents”.
Zoe Saldana was named best actress. Pic: Reuters
Announced by Mick Jagger, best song went to Emilia Perez’s El Mal (which translates as “Evil”), while the prize for costume design went to Wicked’s Paul Tazewell – who became the first black man to receive the award. The Wizard Of Oz prequel also won best production design.
Brazilian director Walter Salles won best international feature for Portuguese-language film I’m Still Here, set in the 1970s in the midst of the Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship.
A word-of-mouth hit, the film’s Brazilian star Fernanda Torres has gone from a relative unknown to a much-talked-about actress in the US in the last few months.
Star of I’m Still Here, Fernanda Torres. Pic: Reuters
Make-up and hairstyling was awarded to body horror The Substance, a film which showcased extreme prosthetics, make-up and gore throughout. It was the film’s only win of the night.
The documentary categories went to The Only Girl In The Orchestra and No Other Land – made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective – for short film and feature film respectively.
Accepting the prize, it’s makers Basel Dra and Yuval Abraham made a political plea to the US: “The foreign policy in this country is helping to block [the path of peace]. Why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.”
Best sound and best visual effects went to Dune: Part Two, directed by Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve.
A night where independent and unusual filmmaking was rewarded, best animated feature went to Latvian computer-generated film Flow, while best animated short film was won by Iranian entry The Shadow Of The Cypress. Both international productions are dialogue-free.
Live action short film went to I’m Not A Robot, a study in an AI-fueled identity crisis.
Tributes were paid to a host of late industry greats, starting with Gene Hackman. Pic: AP/Chris Pizzello
During the ceremony’s in memoriam section, Morgan Freeman paid tribute to two-time Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, who was found dead in his home along with his wife and dog earlier this week.
A video montage honoured Academy members who have passed away over the last year, including British stars Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Joan Plowwright and Donald Sutherland, and US performers James Earl Jones, Kris Kristofferson and David Lynch.
There was also a moving segment honouring late music producer Quincy Jones, led by Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg and featuring rapper Queen Latifah.
Sky News is livestreaming the Vanity Fair and Sir Elton John after-party red carpets following the ceremony. Catching the Oscar-winners as they party the night away, join us there from 6am.
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