Photographer of 'The Embrace' Wins Top Wildlife Photo Award

Photographer of 'The Embrace' Wins Top Wildlife Photo Award
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Photographer of 'The Embrace' Wins Top Wildlife Photo Award

Photographer of 'The Embrace' Wins Top Wildlife Photo Award

A unique glimpse of a rare tigress hugging a fir tree has won this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Russian photographer Sergey Gorshkov beat 49,000 entries from around the world to scoop the top prize in the prestigious contest with the image which took more than 11 months to capture with hidden cameras.

Judges said the photograph shows a 'scene like no other' and offers hope that Siberian, or Amur, tigers are making a comeback, The Metro reported.

Liina Heikkinen won the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year title with a picture she took on holiday in Helsinki, Finland, at the age of 13 of a fox cub trying to eat a barnacle goose in a rock crevice while keeping its hungry siblings at bay.

The winners were being announced by the Duchess of Cambridge at an online awards ceremony on Tuesday night streamed from the Natural History Museum in London, where an exhibition of the images will go on display.

The grand title winners were selected from 100 of the top images submitted to the competition in categories which highlight the world's rich habitats, animal behaviors, and species. Winning images in different categories include a profile shot of a young male monkey, a rare picture of Pallas's cats taken in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and a polar bear in a circus. Photos of a biologist watching a Cordilleran flycatcher build a nest outside his window, a tiny diamondback squid in the darkness, and wasps from different species entering neighboring nests also won category prizes.

Chairwoman of the judging panel Rosamond Kidman Cox said of the overall winning image, The Embrace: "It's a scene like no other; a unique glimpse of an intimate moment deep in a magical forest. Shafts of low winter sun highlight the ancient fir tree and the coat of the huge tigress as she grips the trunk in obvious ecstasy and inhales the scent of tiger on resin, leaving her own mark as her message. It's also a story told in glorious color and texture of the comeback of the Amur tiger, a symbol of the Russian wilderness."



Greece Experiences Weather 'Rollercoaster'

 A person holds a kite amid fog at Palaio Faliro suburb in Athens, Greece, March 15, 2025. (Reuters)
A person holds a kite amid fog at Palaio Faliro suburb in Athens, Greece, March 15, 2025. (Reuters)
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Greece Experiences Weather 'Rollercoaster'

 A person holds a kite amid fog at Palaio Faliro suburb in Athens, Greece, March 15, 2025. (Reuters)
A person holds a kite amid fog at Palaio Faliro suburb in Athens, Greece, March 15, 2025. (Reuters)

Greece is riding a weather "rollercoaster", with weekend temperatures spiking to a record high for March just ahead of a forecast bout of snow and frost, meteorologists said on Sunday.

The mercury soared to 31.4 degrees Celsius (88.5 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday in the central town of Livadia -- the highest-ever recorded for March, according to National Observatory of Athens’ Meteo.gr.

Across the country, other weather stations registered temperatures more typical of balmy May than the closing days of winter.

"The very high maximum temperatures recorded during the last four days (from Wednesday to Saturday) in the country, were record highs for the month of March in many areas," Meteo.gr said.

Following a surge of wildfires, a nationwide ban on burning material on rural properties is in effect until March 18.

"To have such temperatures so early in March, this has never happened before!" meteorologist Panagiotis Giannopoulos told ERT television.

The unusual spike was attributed to a blanket of Saharan dust in the air.

This winter is listed as the 13th warmest in Greece. The previous one, in 2023-2024, remains the warmest on record.

Inhabitants in Greece will have to brace for plunging temperatures from Tuesday, though, weather-watchers said.

"A cold air mass on Tuesday will give showers and snow all over the country," Giannopoulos said.

"In Athens, where today we have 27 degrees the maximum temperature will be 11 degrees. This is a rollercoaster," he added.

The abrupt change is particularly problematic for the agricultural sector.

In Greece's region of northern Macedonia -- which experienced 27 degrees on the weekend -- the expected frost is set to cause severe damage to fruit trees that are in full bloom.

Greece has become a climate-change hotspot. It had its hottest summer and warmest winter on record in 2024, according to data from the Meteo.gr network.

The year brought unprecedented temperatures, extreme rainfall and a notable frequency of impactful weather events.

Thirty-one significant weather incidents disrupted daily life in 2023, well above the 2000-2024 average, while nine weather-related deaths were registered.