People’s Choice Award

WINNER OF 'PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD 2025'

Austrian photographer Josef Stefan's winning image 'Flying Rodent' captures a young Iberian lynx playfully throwing a rodent into the air before killing and devouring it. It’s common for young lynx to play with their prey before killing it.

This one repeatedly threw the rodent high in the air and caught it again. To Josef, it looked as if the rodent could fly.

The whole game lasted about 20 minutes before the lynx got bored. It then took the rodent behind a bush and ate it.

Josef has wanted to photograph lynx for a long time. He was delighted when the opportunity arose to spend two weeks observing them from a hide at Torre de Juan Abad, Ciudad Real, Spain.

Josef Stefan says: "The journey to take this image was more than just another photographic adventure, it was the pursuit of a dream that had been with me for years: encountering the Iberian lynx, one of the rarest and most endangered wild cats in the world. In the early 2000s, this species was on the brink of extinction. Today, there are now over 2,000 thanks to consistent conservation efforts. The Iberian lynx is a living symbol of hope, showing what can happen when we take responsibility, act consciously and focus our attention where it’s most needed. Winning this award and being able to platform this message is the highlight of my 30 years as a nature photographer."

A brown-throated three-toed sloth mother cradles her young in her arms to shelter it from the rain near La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica.  

An ambush bug nymph remains motionless in a flower, waiting for prey to wander within reach in Ferndale, Michigan, USA.

Against the darkness of the nighttime sea, a juvenile swimming crab hitches a ride on a jellyfish in Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. 

A pangolin pup – the world’s most trafficked animal – nestles into the warmth of a blanket at a rescue centre in South Africa.

A rare pseudo-melanistic tiger with wide, dark stripes wanders Similipal Tiger Reserve, Odisha, India.

A sun bear shelters from the rain in a furnace as a butterfly settles on its snout inside Kaeng Krachan National Park, Thailand. 

A polar bear cub looks into the camera as it accompanies its mother on an unsuccessful hunting trip along the Svalbard archipelago coast, Norway.

A mother polar bear and her three cubs peacefully pause in the summer heat on their journey north along the Hudson Bay coast, Canada. 

A silhouetted pair of young bear cubs rear up and play-fight in the middle of a quiet road in Jasper National Park, Canada. 

A year’s worth of confiscated snares lies behind Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers in a mountainous pile in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. 

Lacking melanin and therefore vital camouflage, this leucistic otter feeds on a catfish in the southern Pantanal, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. 

A brushtail possum joey mirrors its mother climbing a branch while foraging in Miena, Tasmania, Australia. 

A flamboyance of flamingos stands out against a stark industrial backdrop of power lines in Walvis Bay, Namibia. 

A spectacular superpod of spinner dolphins herds lanternfish towards the surface of the Pacific Ocean near Costa Rica. 

A sarus crane parent makes beak-to-beak contact with its one-week-old chick in an intimate and moving moment in the rice paddies of Huai Chorakhe Mak Non-Hunting Area, Buri Ram, Thailand. 

A male marvellous spatuletail hummingbird shows off its impressively long tail, used to attract females, while it feeds on flowers in Pomacochas, Peru. 

In a flash of movement and a shimmer of iridescence, an elusive rufous-vented ground cuckoo plucks up a cicada in the depths of the rainforest in Costa Rica.

A trio of young kestrels contemplates a leap from their nest to a nearby beam in Dortmund, Germany.

Rows of photovoltaic panels from a solar farm stretch across the landscape like ripples on a water’s surface in Cambridge, England, UK. 

A female cellar spider – sometimes known as a ‘daddy long-legs’ – carries a ball of precious eggs in her mouth in the photographer’s home in Southampton, England, UK. 

A tiny male sits atop the abdomen of a well-camouflaged female broad-headed bark spider, waiting until she moults and is ready to mate in Khao Phra Thaeo Non-Hunting Area, Phuket, Thailand.

A sika deer carries the interlocked severed head of a rival male that died after their battle on the Notsuke Peninsula, Hokkaido, Japan.

The striking eyes of a curious lion-tailed macaque and its infant are on display as it races along a path in the city of Valparai, Western Ghats, India.