Pet cat Ryska showed who's boss despite being outsized by several red foxes that came snooping around photographer Igor Shpilenok's ranger cabin in Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. Her defiance helped win Shpilenok a Wildlife Photographer of the Year honor in London on October 22, 2009.
She soon earned respect from them--and from me--living up to her name, which means 'little lynx' in Russian, said Shpilenok, who took Ryska along for company during his five-month stay in the vast Kronotsky Nature Reserve.
Winner: Animal Behavior, Mammals "Boto Water Polo"
A pair of Amazon dolphins use a floating seed as an opportunity for a "ball game" in a tributary of the Rio Negro, Brazil--helping U.S. photographer Kevin Schafer win top honors in the mammal-behavior category of the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest on October 22, 2009.
Winner: Wild Places
"Big Fjord, Little Auks"
A flock of little auks give a sense of scale to the glacial landscape of northeast Greenland, where freshly calved icebergs loom from the mist.
Winner: Young Overall Winner "Clash of the Yellowhammers"
Fergus Gill of the United Kingdom captured the split-second drama of two male yellowhammers fighting over a winter meal of oats to snare top honors in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition's 17-and-under division on October 22, 2009. Seventeen-year-old Gill started planning for his photo in the summer, when he collected sheaves of oats to attract seed-eating yellowhammers to his garden the following February. Once the snows came, Gill spent many hours waiting inside a purpose-built hideout.
