Gutoski Canadian amateur photographer Don Gutoski won the top prize for this chilling photo

The Natural History Museum's (NMH) annual show awards the year's best of nature photography - and this year has been one of the most competitive.



Canadian amateur photographer Don Gutoski won the top prize after his photo 'Tale of two foxes' won praise across the panel of international judges.

His picture revealed a "beautiful but haunting portrait of the struggle for life in the subarctic climes".



The spectacular photograph beat more than 42,000 other entries submitted from nearly 100 countries - and will be on show at the museum from this weekend before travelling the world in an international exhibit.



The fifty-first NMH photograph competition aimed to celebrate "the rich array of life on our planet, reflecting its beauty and highlighting its fragility".



Mr Gutoski's photo captured an incredibly rare glimpse of two different species of foxes forced to hunt each other in the snowy landscape.



The photo, of a red fox holding a dead Arctic fox in its jaw, is a "stark example of climate change", according to the judges.



Mr Gutoski had been visiting Cape Churchil in early winter - where the territory of the red fox and the Arctic fox overlap.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners Mon, January 11, 2016 See the best entries from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards. Photographer's from around the world capture the best images at it's finest. Play slideshow WPOTY 1 of 16 See the winners and runners up showcasing the best nature photos

He said: "The Churchill guides had heard that the two species will occasionally fight, but no one we talked to had ever seen this behaviour.



"I first noticed the red fox hunting and interacting with some prey and on closer approach realised that prey was a white Arctic fox.



"By the time I got close enough to capture the event, the fight was over and the victor was feeding.



"I took a number of pictures of the event, until the red fox had eaten its fill, and picked up the remains to find a hiding spot for a later meal."



Kathy Moran, a judge and the National Geographic senior editor, added: "The immediate impact of this photograph is that it appears as if the red fox is slipping out of its winter coat.



"What might simply be a straightforward interaction between predator and prey struck the jury as a stark example of climate change, with red foxes encroaching on Arctic fox territory.



"The bottom line is, this image works on multiple levels. It is graphic, it captures behaviour and it is one of the strongest single storytelling photographs I have seen."



Another incredible shot of nature at work was the winner of the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Ondrej Pelánek Ondrej Pelánek - at just fourteen years of age - captured this wonderful moment

Ondrej Pelánek - aged just fourteen - captured the moment two ruffs displayed their "warlike behaviour" during some bizarre courting.



His photo 'Fighting ruffs', taken in Norway on Varanger’s tundra, showed the moment one male ruff began threatening others in his 'courtship area'.



Mr Pelánek said: "I took this photograph at midnight when my father was sleeping. I was too excited, so stayed awake."



Mr Moran added: "This is a complex, beautifully layered photograph, a surprisingly sophisticated way of seeing that immediately generated buzz within the jury.



"There are lots of good photographs of ruffs, getting ready to display, but very few images that capture the behaviour with such intensity and grace.



"The photographer has captured a moment that speaks to powerful behaviour, yet renders it as a delicate dance.



"You could spend a career trying to make this photograph. That it came from one of the younger entrants was just a thrill."



Michael Aw's photo of a whale having a bite of sardines, titled 'A whale of a mouthful', won one of the awards' subsections - the 'Underwater Photographer of the Year'.

Michael Aw Michael Aw risked encountering dangerous sharks to capture 'A whale of a mouthful'

The Aussie photographer captured the moment a Bryde’s whale ripped through a ball of sardines, gulping a huge mouthful in a single pass.



Mr Aw had been diving offshore of South Africa’s Eastern Cape specifically to photograph the spectacle of the ‘sardine run’ – the annual winter migration of billions of sardines.



The diver risked potential attack from large sharks just to get the dramatic photograph.

Pere-Soler Pere Soler snapped this aerial mosiac of marshes and algae to win the 'From the Sky' Wildlife Award