Mammals

1st Award  MontPhoto Honor Award

A long exposure camera trap photograph of a Leopard (Panthera pardus). The Camtraptions camera trap was set up to expose stars but the moon came up and resulted in this ghostly impression which captures the essence of these elusive cats.

In the last years, due to the colonization and re-introduction of specimens, the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) have been approaching more humanized spaces. Demonstrating a goodies of these areas, a female started to use a old haystack to breed. In the photo, one of this lynx juveniles take a look to the camera.

A Red fox (Vulpes vulpes) curls up on green outside a row of Victorian houses in north London. She has dominated her territory for 5 years and must have an encyclopaedic knowledge of her surroundings. I have go to know her well and she fully trusts my presence. It's a privilege to be so close to these beautiful, highly intelligent creatures. They have found salvation in our cities and survive against all the odds.

Photographing Mountain Hares (Lepus timidus) can be a challenge, you are often exposed to the harshest weather a day in the Scottish mountains can throw at you. But this is what I love, batting against the elements, a sense of adventure searching for these elusive animals. Only by spending time in these difficult conditions can you truly showcase, the hardship mountain hares face each Winter.

It is always nice to see the Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) fishing. Although it is a common sight to watch them hunting, yet each grizzly bear has their own technique to hunt fish. In this picture the Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) thankfully got escaped. But the uniqueness of this picture is the speaking eyes the fish, it was the moment of life or death. I am sure a million thoughts must have rolled through the mind of both.

Not far from our town there is a nice unspoilt area. It's swampy most of the year, and the vegetation is so dense, it's almost impossible for people to get in there. It's a good hideout for wild animals, of course, and a lot of Western Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) spend the whole day here. I've been photographing them with drones for years because they're beautiful in this environment.

On February 2020 I was in the steppe zone in eastern Mongolia in search of the elusive Pallas's Cat (Otocolobus manul). After 6 full days of searching we were lucky to find this cat lurking for prey in the snowy steppe. The cat was covered in fresh snow which made him look like an unfamiliar creature, A snow monster! The Pallas’s cat is listed as 'Near Threatened' on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.