Week in Pictures: Colour By Nature

If there is anything constant or predictable about nature, it’s that it is spectacularly colourful. Every morning there is a sunrise to paint the dawn peachy tones of pink, and every evening there is a sunset that stains the sky all shades of salmon. Even if there is a build up of cloud in the wide open skies, rays of golden light peek through intermittently, illuminating the emerald leaves on summer trees. In winter, brilliant green is replaced by dusky purples and champagne beige, while tree trunks are crocodile skins of charcoal standing tall from the terracotta coloured soil. The bush is a celebration of colour, and the bush dwellers camouflage and contrast just as beautifully. When the artistic gift of our photographers combines with what is already provided in the wild world, we get the Week in Pictures: Colour By Nature!

Tuskers Bush Camp, Moremi, Botswana

A herd of elephants gather at sunset to drink at a pan in the Tuskers concession on the eastern edge of Moremi Game Reserve

Contrasting black and white sacred ibises perch in a community nesting site under moody blue-grey skies

A leopard emerges from its hiding place behind a termite mound in Moremi Game Reserve

A young vervet monkey freezes before it leaps into the safety of a tree once it is spotted foraging in the fallen brown winter leaves

Africa on Foot, Klaserie Private Nature Reserve, Greater Kruger Park

Antelope royalty: a male kudu makes eye contact with us as we admire him against a backdrop of rare greenery

The earth's tallest mammal gazes down at the world through a beam of sunlight

A white-backed vulture perches, hunched, on the bare branches of a perished tree while the heavens above deliberate over a storm above

Looking into the soul of an elephant through the colourless branches of a drought-striken tree

nThambo Tree Camp, Klaserie Private Nature Reserve, Greater Kruger

The golden hour captures one of Africa's most famously photogenic animals

One of the Trilogy male lions leans towards a shallow pan to drink in the remaining muddy water

White-backed vultures squabble over a buffalo carcass in a flutter of heavily feathered wings

Two wrinkled elephants walk in unison through the stark bush, paying gentle attention to one another

Ezulwini River Lodge, Balule Nature Reserve, Greater Kruger Park

A spotted bush snake peers out over the edge of a broad leaf and ponders its next move

A female kudu pauses shyly as she is exposed and vulnerable on the height of a termite mound

A lone zebra captured alongside the skeleton of a tree

A grey heron contemplates its handsome reflection in the rippled surface of the water

Umkumbe Safari Lodge, Sabi Sand Wildtuin, Greater Kruger Park

Tatowa, leopardess royalty, illuminated in the Sabi Sand's morning light

A mother giraffe leads its newborn through the thicket and into the blossoming sunset

The scavengers of the bush feed hungrily on the remains of a buffalo

The iconic zebra stands, alert, on the open African plains