Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition

Daughter Jen and I visited Ihe Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum today. It's something of an annual family event but it was just the two of us this year and we were cutting it a bit fine as it closes soon. So here's a small selection of the extraordinary images on display - a Pallas's cat photographed in Mongolia, a mother and calf pair of manatees pictured in Florida and, much closer to home, a jackdaw building a nest with stones in Bushey Park. There were, as always  a number of striking photos showing the cruelty and/or indifference of our supposedly superior species to the animal world including a requiem shark trying to free itself as a bycatch of industrial tuna fishing and an orangutan captured from the wild, dressed in shorts and trained to perform for humans. The hugely detrimental impact of the climate crisis on animal habitat and food sources was also evident, mirrored by another day of exceptionally hot weather that made walking around London quite an ordeal.

A sobering  collection that both celebrated the wonders of the animal kingdom and the reckless  neglect of man, with just the occasional uplift of images of effective conservation projects.