The snow-covered ice sheet that had formed along the coast of Newfoundland’s Ingornachoix Bay was rare. It was reportedly only the second time in 40 years that such a sheet had appeared. This past February, photographer David Sturge spent four days on the pack ice, photographing the scarcely-seen harem of harp seals and their nursing young that filled the inlet.

Terrestrial Life

Winner: Steven Marriott

An American mink makes a dash toward the camera after caching some prey in the brush at Lynde Shores Conservation Area in Whitby, Ont.

Runner-up: Chris Gibbs

Black bear cubs warily eye their surroundings while following their mother through Waterton Lakes National Park, Alta.

Aquatic Life

Winner: Jean-Christophe Lemay

A sandworm (Alitta virens) swims in the St. Lawrence Estuary in Rimouski, Que. Sandworms spend most of their lives in burrows in the seafloor, emerging only to eat, but during their spring mating season, males become colourful and swim to the surface to fertilize the females’ eggs.

Runner-up: Yagnesh Mangukiya

A pair of red-necked grebes in Toronto’s Colonel Samuel Smith Park performs an elaborate mating ritual involving synchronized swimming and loud vocalizations.

Flora and Fungi 

Winner: Anthony Zerafa

Scheuchzer’s cottongrass (Eriophorum scheuchzeri) — known in the North Baffin dialect of Inuktitut as kanguujat (“what looks like snow geese”) — on the shore of Colour Lake on Axel Heiberg Island (Umingmat Nunaat), Nunavut.

Runner-up: John Deal

A great sundew at Echo Lake on Vancouver Island, B.C. Sundews are carnivorous; insects are attracted to their sugary scent, then trapped by the sticky drops on the plant’s leaves, which bend around their prey to facilitate digestion.

Things With Wings

Winner: Jon Behuniak

The photographer was searching for native bees to photograph in his backyard in Asquith, Sask. when he noticed this thick-headed fly (Myopa clausa) on a raspberry cane. These flies tend to hang out where they can find hosts — namely bees and wasps — for their parasitic larvae.

Runner-up: Hugues de Millville

A split-second capture freezes the moment a startled ruffed grouse rockets out of a tree in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ont.

Honourable mentions

Eli Wolpin

A giant Pacific octopus rests amid the kelp forest in Browning Pass, Port Hardy, B.C.

Dalin Laqua

A black-bellied plover rises above the surface of Frank Lake, near High River, Alta.

Jack Medeiros

A solitary sandpiper fuels up for its fall migrations at Lemoine Point Conservation Area in Kingston, Ont.

Liron Gertsman

Grizzly bear siblings playfight during a burst of heavy rain in B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest.

Andrew Waterhouse 

A family of raccoons peeks out from the hollow of a tree in St. Thomas, Ont.

Tyler Cave

Sunlight filters through the lichens dangling over Khutzeymateen Inlet, B.C.

Robert Gubiani

Warm spring sunlight illuminates a pasqueflower — commonly known as a prairie crocus — at Cranberry Flats Conservation Area in Saskatoon. The emergence of these blooms is an annual sign that spring has arrived.

Natasha Grapes

A sandhill crane preens its feathers at Burnaby Lake in Burnaby, B.C.