Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

This year’s November edition of BBC Wildlife Magazine features its regular announcement of the Winners and runners up of the prestigious ‘Wildlife Photographer of the Year’ competition. This year’s competition, now sponsored by Veolia Environnement and in its 45th year still stands as the most sought after prize for wildlife photographers both in the UK and abroad.

The standard was as high as ever with over 43,000 entries from 94 countries being submitted by the world’s top professionals and amateur photographer enthusiasts.

Top prize was taken by Jose Luiz Rodriquez from Spain with a stunning image of an Iberian wolf leaping a gate whilst out hunting. A culmination of Jose Luiz own visualization of such an image after observing the animals hunting and pain-staking planning result in an image which displays the beauty, strength and agility of this almost mythological predator.

Other notable award winners were Tom Schandy (Norway) who took the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife with a shot of the illusive Jaguar in the swamp forests of western Brazil, and a brilliantly intimate photograph of an Red Ant drinking from a raindrop balanced on a mallow petal by Andras Meszaros from Hungary. 'The beauty of macro-photography,' says András, 'is the world’s it reveals - all the activity going on in miniature that you otherwise would never see.'

Check out more about this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and details of how to enter next year’s event at the Natural History Museum’s website.