A red squirrel diving headlong into a tree snags the top award in the 2024 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards (previously), snapped by Italian photographer Milko Marchetti. “He has been sitting on this beauty of a shot for a couple of years now and decided that this year was the year to enter it,” the organizers say. “We are chuffed he did because this little red squirrel has only gone and won the whole competition!”
Additional category winners and highly commended images include a beady-eyed “mafia boss” by Takashi Kubo, a discombobulated eagle by Tapani Linnanmäki, and a celebratory mantis by Jose Miguel Gallego Molina. Check out more finalists, including a few that won in their categories, and see the entire gallery on the contest’s website.
