Some really nice wildlife photos over at the BBC, including the grand prize winner of a leaping wolf (see the BBC page for the stories behind these photos):
But of course I like this one best:
(From the BBC) : With the help of his feisty cat, Igor Shpilenok won the Urban and Garden Wildlife category with this shot.
He spent five months as a ranger in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve in Kamchatka in the east of Russia, and took his cat Ryska with him for company.
“It’s a very remote place and there were lots of animals – bears, foxes, wolverines – living near my cabin,” he told BBC News.
“The cat was really jealous about me. If I started to look at the animals, she would attack them. Just like a woman,” he smiled.
“Maybe she thought I was her pet.”
But the animals were curious about the area’s new residents, and were drawn by cooking smells from the cabin. The foxes in particular would visit every day. “When they came within 20m, that was her boundary and chased them. It was really funny – foxes were climbing trees to get away from the cat.”
Mr Shpilenok’s wife, Laura Williams, selected the category-winning image. “It’s ironic,” she said. “He photographs the wilderness, but the two times he’s won a category [in this competition] it’s been the urban wildlife one. Because the wilderness is his back yard.”
Nikon D3 + 300mm lens; 1/500 sec at f4.5; ISO 640
h/t: Otter
You know this reminded me of a short story I remember reading as a child about why the cat is king of the forest or something . .about a cat who gets in so much trouble that his owner sews him up in a bag and tosses him out into the woods. It’s a Russian folk tale as I recall. I’ll have to look it up when I go home, I still have the set of books it’s in.
Cats are very territorial. Females more than males, in my experience.
One cat I had (that died about two years ago) once ripped through a screen door (the screen was loose) to attack a small dog on the deck that had wandered onto our property. This was not a large cat. She also defended her territory from other cats, larger than she was (her boundary appeared to be about 30m from the house).
She treed herself rather than attacking a black bear, however, which was probably wise.
Wow, fabulous urban photos.
Wonderful photos!
I wish my cat were as bold as Igor – our resident fox had him pinned under the truck, screaming for rescue.
My cat was no threat, but Ms.Fox found her match in our resident groundhog: she got too close to mother groundhog’s baby, and was chased all around the yard by the corpulent rodent. Quite a sight.