Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010 highly commended images

The world’s most prestigious wildlife photography competition, Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year, has revealed some of the commended images from this year’s competition.

There's five listed here, these are among the selection that will join more than 100 other prize-winning photographs, including the overall winning images, when the exhibition debuts at the Natural History Museum, London on 22 October 2010. It will then tour nationally and internationally after its launch in the capital. More than one million visitors are expected to have seen the exhibition once the tour is complete.

A carcass-eye view by Juergen Ross (Germany). Category: Behaviour: Mammals - Highly Commended. A feeding lioness is framed by the carcass of a giraffe at South Africa's Kruger National Park

Picture: Jürgen Ross / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The thoughtful baboon by Adrian Bailey (South Africa). Category: Behaviour: Mammals - Highly Commended. Each morning, thousands of Cape turtle doves flock to a trickling seep at Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe, the only source of water for miles around. Birds of prey, meanwhile, line up in trees on nearby cliffs and pick off the drinking doves. This young male baboon finds one of the victims on the ground.
Picture: Adrian Bailey / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Fishing frenzy by Tomasz Racznyski (Poland). Category: Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife - Highly Commended. A black-browed albatross has just surfaced after diving for the discarded horse mackerel and is being set upon by a rabble of other birds. On a trawler in the South Pacific, fish falling from the nets as they are pulled up are an irresistible lure.
Picture: Tomasz Racznyski / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Sunset moment by Olivier Puccia (France). Category: Urban Wildlife - Highly Commended. Overlooking Ramtek in Maharashtra, western India, Hanuman langurs find the highest point from which to admire the sunset. Squeezed out of their forest homes by deforestation and the spread of human habitation, Hanuman langurs have become part of urban life in many parts of India.
Picture: Olivier Puccia / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The ant-shepherd and its little flock by Matt Cole (UK). Category: Behaviour: All Other Animals - Highly Commended. A Black Ant (Lasius niger) herding Black Bean Aphids (Aphis fabae), to 'milk' their honeydew (an ant stroking the aphids with its feelers to encourage them to excrete drops of honeydew). Taken in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire.
Picture: Matt Cole / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year


The 2010 search has now been completed, and the winning and commended images will be on show in the exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, from 22 October 2010. As a photographer I have strongly recommend you visit this exhibition, I make a point in my schedule to visit it every year and it never disappoints. You will love it. To book tickets, please follow the link here

The winning and commended images from 2009 have been published as a hardcover book;  Wildlife Photographer of Year: Portfolio 19  (Amazon US).