2022’s Funniest Wildlife Photos Prove Animals Are The Original Jokesters
Birds of a feather flock together. Crocodile tears. Monkey see, monkey do. Snakes and Ladders. How does one make sense of the world without animals?
The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards is back again to showcase the best moments of Mother Nature’s unintentional comedians. Founded in 2015 by photographers and animal lovers Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, it brings a light-hearted and creative spin to conservation awareness and action. This year, the event is supporting the Whitley Fund for Nature and is dedicating 10% of its net revenue to the UK nonprofit.
Activating its claws (albeit not in the cleverest way) in this competitive climb for the title of funniest wildlife photo is a silly, three-month-old lion cub who has lost its grip on a tree trunk. The little big feline may have lost its balance, but it has won hearts with its Not so cat-like reflexes, which is also the title of the picture.
The classic moment was captured in the Serengeti, Tanzania, by wildlife photographer Jennifer Hadley. “It was probably his first time in a tree, and he decided to just go for it,” Hadley says in a statement shared with DesignTAXI.
Hadley says it was late in the afternoon around the time the photo was taken, so she had her aperture wide open to get the most light possible, and her shutter down lower than usual. “But I figured with the cub walking around in the tree, I didn’t really need the speed,” she notes. The cub then had a go at descending the tree “in the most un-cat-like fashion,” Hadley recalls. “I mean, how often do cats fall out of trees?”
The photographer remembers how everyone in the vehicle gasped at the moment. “No one expected this to happen,” she elaborates. “And of course we were concerned for his safety but happily as cats do, he righted himself just in time and landed on all fours and ran off with his siblings.”
“A happy ending for a hapless kitty who didn’t quite know how to get down from a tree!”
The photo was up against 5,000 other entries from more than 85 countries, and the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards team says it saw its closest voting yet.
Other winning shots include Arturo Telle Thiemann’s image of gray triggerfish giving their best smiles for the camera’s, uh, trigger; Jia Chen’s roundup of a Cooper’s Hawk seemingly playing soccer; and an adorable image of a winking owl by young photographer Arshdeep Singh.
Hadley also clinched the People’s Choice vote with her image of a juicy moment between two penguins, where one of them appears to gesture, “Talk to the fin!”
Have a laugh at this year’s picks for the most hilarious moments captured in the wild, and find out more about the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards here.
Misleading African viewpoints 2, featuring a hippo and heron in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Image © Jean Jacques Alcalay (Creatures of the Air winner) / Comedy Wildlife 2022, featured with permission
It’s all kicking off!, featuring wallabies in Cape Hillsborough, Queensland, Australia. Image © Michael Eastwell / Comedy Wildlife 2022, featured with permission
[via Comedy Wildlife 2022, images taken by various photographers and featured with permission]
