Composite image. Ladybirds can fly up 74 miles in a single flight and reach almost 40mph (as fast as a racehorse).
A Glass-wing butterfly (Greta oto) in the jungles of Costa Rica.
A small tortoiseshell butterfly on a migration route high in the air over the UK.
A male Annas hummingbird ((Calypte anna) performs the worlds fastest courtship display – captured using a ‘stromotion’ technique.
A female Phorid fly attacks a colony of fire ants.
Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), Oregon USA. These birds are one of the most aggressive in the world – they’ll attack any bird that comes to close during nesting seasons ( they have even been known to launch at low flying aircraft).
Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris). A murmuration of starlings at dusk on the Somerset Levels, UK.
Asterling Murmartion, composite, Somserset UK.
The sky is a crowded world where mammals, birds and insects hunt, escape, mate, defend territory, sleep and even die on the wing. Survival up there depends not just on beating gravity or mastering flight, but also out-flying the competition.
