Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award

Now for some happy news about a joyful Israeli turtle. Photographer Tzhai Finklestein has been selected as a highly commended top-five finalist in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award competition. Finklestein’s dazzling photograph of a turtle in the water with a dragonfly on its mouth was taken in the Jezreel Valley, a lush plain in northern Israel. In the photo, it very much looks like the turtle is smiling and joyfully kissing the dragonfly. While his intention was to capture images of birds in the swampy waters, a northern banded dragonfly fluttered past his lens and changed his focus to a Balkan pond turtle. To his surprise, the dragonfly landed on the turtle’s nose, and the two creatures shared a peaceful moment of coexistence. Finklestein knew he had to snap this precious shot. In the award-winning image, the PHOTO CAPTION (Under the photo) says “Happy Turtle.” Finklestein’s piece, along with the work of four other international recipients, will be displayed in London’s Natural History Museum until June 30th of this year. The other People’s Choice Award-winning photos include a polar bear in Norway shot by a British photographer, a glowing jellyfish under the moon also from Norway with a Norwegian photographer, a shocking swarm of starling birds shot in Rome, Italy, by a German-Romanian photographer, and Mark Boyd from Kenya who captured a lion cub being licked on his cheeks by both of his parents on either side of him at the same time.