See the hilarious winners of the 2023 Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards

(CNN) — Get ready to laugh, guffaw or even laugh, because this is the most important time of the year for those who love funny animal pictures.

The UK-based Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards judges reviewed more than 1,800 photos submitted from 85 countries and judged whether they were funny, funny or just plain fun.

And the overall winner for 2023 – please, this is a photo worthy of a musical accompaniment – ​​is the kangaroo doing the air guitar pose.

Photographer Jason Moore captured a female western gray kangaroo one morning in a field of wildflowers on the outskirts of Perth, Australia. The author won a handmade trophy, a photography bag and a week-long safari in Kenya’s Masai Mara region.

There were six winners in the category, including young photographer Jacek Stankiewicz, who took home the Junior Prize with his image of some feisty greenfinches, titled ‘Dispute’. The winning image in the underwater category was a photograph of a dancing otter, taken by a Singaporean photographer called Otter Kwik, which is either a pseudonym or a global example of nominative determinism.

Dancing Otter: Singaporean otter Kwik won the underwater category with this photo of a smooth-coated otter caught in a balletic swoon. (Credit: Outer Quik)

Wildlife conservation

There were 10 other photos that got a special mention. These include an elegant Ubud monkey who uses his tail as a fake moustache, an enchanted turtle who befriends a dragonfly, and a lively baby kangaroo that throws “jazz hands” into the air.

Here we leave you the photos that were part of the winners and special mentions:

UNEXPECTED DIVE: A heron’s face plants in the water in this photo taken by Italian Vittorio Ricci at Zimanga Private Game Reserve in South Africa. (Credit: Vittorio Ricci)

Dispute: Winner of the Junior and People’s Choice categories, Polish photographer Jacek Stankiewicz saw this little green bird put the world to rights in this heated debate with his elders. (Credit: Jacek Stankiewicz)

DON’T LOOK DOWN: This Atlantic puffin was watching a jellyfish off the coast of the Farne Islands in Northumberland, England, when he caught it doing this “inverted Snoopy impression,” says photographer Brian Matthews. Strongly praised. (Credit: Brian Matthews)

Gray Fox Smoking: Critically acclaimed winner Dakota Vaccaro captured this photo of a gray fox in Virginia, USA, chewing on a piece of wood like a cigar. (Credit: Dakota Vaccaro)

Rainforest Dandy: This monkey, which makes a mustache with its tail, was captured by Belgian photographer Delphine Casimir in the Ubud Monkey Forest in Bali. (Credit: Delphine Casimir)

Snowball: This snowball white grouse is well prepared for the cold of winter in this photo by Frenchman Jacques Poulard. (Credit: Jack Pollard)

Distressed Owl: John Blumenkamp captured this photo of a great gray owl caught in a rut in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. (Credit: John Blumenkamp)

Boing!: This playful little kangaroo was captured making some shapes by Lara Matthews at Westerfolds Park outside Melbourne, Australia. (Credit: John Blumenkamp)

Helpful Macaque: Pratik Mondal was in Bharatpur in Rajasthan, India, when he saw this macaque that seemed to point to the deer in the photo behind him. Strongly praised. (Credit: Pratik Mondal)

Happy Turtle: This bog turtle appears to be delighted by a dragonfly that has landed on its snout in this photo taken by Tzachi Finkelstein in the Jezreel Valley in Israel. (Credit: Tsahi Finkelstein)

“That wasn’t here yesterday!”: Oh! Wendy Kaveney captured the moment a white-winged dove collided head-on with a cholla cactus in Buckeye, Arizona. Strongly praised. (Credit: Wendy Caveny)

One for the family album: Zoe Ashdown of Weston-super-Mare, England, discovered that this family of northern gannets was more than willing to have their pictures taken. Strongly praised. (Credit: Zoe Ashdown)

You can see the rest of this year’s finalists in our previous article here.

However, all this comic anthropomorphism is not without seriousness.

The awards, founded in 2015 by professional photographers Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sollam, also promote wildlife conservation. This year’s competition supports the Whitley Trust for Nature, a British charity that helps fund conservationists around the world.

But for the unconditional, the laughter doesn’t end here.

The first wildlife-guided African comedy safari will launch in Tanzania in October 2024, guided by awards founders Hicks and Salaam and wildlife expert Kate Humble.

An eight-night trip costs £11,425 (about US$13,900) per person in a double room. Beware of laugh-out-loud moments on open safari vehicles: you don’t want to start laughing out loud during the wildebeest migration.