These Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Pics Will Brighten Your Day

As usual, the entrants depict nature in all its stunning, harsh and often unforgiving glory with standouts including a fox catching its meal, a zen-like proboscis monkey and a group of Pallas's cubs running from a predator.

Entries were judged on their "artistic composition, technical innovation and truthful interpretation of the natural world", with the winners announced by no other than the Duchess of Cambridge at the Natural History Museum on Tuesday.

Russian photographer Sergey Gorshkov took home this year's top award for his photo of a Siberian tiger hugging a fir tree, titled 'The Embrace'.

The winning photo was captured after 10 months of scouring the forest for signs of Amur, or Siberian tigers.

Serge knew his chances of photographing one of the tigers was slim, but he made it his mission. "From then on, I could think of nothing else," the photographer said.

Setting up his camera trap, he managed to capture the incredible image of the Siberian tiger rubbing up against the tree.

Another stunning entry comes from Mogens Trolle. 'The Pose' shows a proboscis monkey with its head cocked and eyes closed.

According to Mogens, the monkey was "the most laid-back character" and posed for a few seconds in this position as if meditating.

Andrea Zampatti's 'Alpine Revelation', is the kind of photo you have to study for a while. At first, the photographer spotted one ibex, but the more he looked, more began appearing, blending into the rocky surroundings.

Another playful entry, Shanyuan Li's 'When Mother Says Run', took six long years to capture.

Photographer Shanyuan waited tirelessly by an old marmot hole which homed a mother and her group of cubs. Her hours of patience were rewarded when three of the kittens emerged to play around in the grass.

Suddenly, the mother spotted a Tibetan fox nearby and quickly ushered the babies back in doors.

Stunning!