Young animal and its parent

What a fun situation! As the supervising parent I would be worried that the kids' legs and necks become entangled. – From the branches in the foreground it is obvious that the photographer did not have much room to move the PoV; a good moment was chosen to separate the adult from the trees in the background, and to have most of the young animals in front of the green shrubbery to create a "colour separation". – Thank you for entering this photograph!

This self-serve feeding style may be natural to the pelicans, but it looks painful to the observer! – The well-chosen PoV and division of the frame make the subjects stand out clearly against the sky, even if there is a third pelican shape that I cannot quite work out anatomically. In addition to a triangular shape, there is a very neat repeated curve, formed by the outstretched wings and then inverted in the sandy ground contour. – Thank you for entering this photograph and congratulations on making my Top 10!

There was an expected cuteness overload in this contest... I tended to favour images that showed a lot more of the animals than can be seen in this frame – which is a difficult ask with this particular animal – and thus I kept pushing it down in the ranks. Somehow it managed to creep back up and it finally won me over with its composition. – There is a good separation between foreground and background. Rather than being a distraction, the giraffe on the left is just blurred and "small" enough to merely provide a curve to lead us to the main subject. The parent then does the rest to ensure that our eye stays on the main subject, as well as giving us that moment of tenderness. – Thank you for entering this photograph and congratulations on coming first!

Some teenagers are so hard to please! – Light, composition, detail and shapes are beautiful, the chick's beak and bent leg lead the eye to the frustrated parent. – Thank you for entering this photograph and congratulations on making my Top 10!

This is an unexpected minimalist yet dynamic entry in this contest. I would love to know how the photographer achieved this PoV... We can see two diagonal lines: The perfectly aligned shapes of parent and young across the corner, then the lines of the waves running perpendicular to the animals. There is just enough texture in the waves to make the negative space look interesting. – Thank you for entering this photograph and congratulations on making my Top 10!

A typical pouting teenager? Or learning how to scan the horizon for approaching danger, e.g. a photographer? There is probably as much emotion expressed as one can expect from a rhino. – The combined shapes form a triangle, leading us through the frame. It is interesting to see that animals that carry this much physical mass can blend in with their environment quite nicely, in this case helped by the shadows created by nearby trees. – Thank you for entering this photograph!

It was a good and maybe brave decision to include the negative space in this frame. The focus is so clearly on the young monkey and its parent that even the bright patches in the background do not distract. The green patch in the bottom right corner balances the bright light in the top left corner to an extent. The information is presented in a neat triangle, and the gesture of the young one nibbling on its foot, which might not be approved of by the mother, adds to the composition as it leads our eye to the monkey's face. We can see the monkeys' world reflected in the young one's eyes. The DoF gives centre stage to the young animal and provides just enough separation from the parent. – Thank you for entering this photograph and congratulations on 2nd place!

Juvenile exuberance presented in a nice triangular shape, with two more triangles framing the main area. The background is quite busy with textures, but the common hue calms it. – Thank you for entering this photograph and congratulations on 4th place!