Marcello Calandrini's Image

It was the puffins in particular that Marcello had come to photograph on the Farne Islands, Northumberland, renowned for its breeding colonies of seabirds.

'I was busy photographing a group of puffins,' says Marcello, 'but sensed a commotion to one side - a gaggle of black-headed gulls attempting to steal sand eels out of the beak of a returning puffin. Framing the scene in an instant, he pushed the shutter just once before the puffin escaped with its catch intact. 'Everything came together in that single moment,' he adds, 'action, composition, soft light and, most important, a pin-sharp puffin eye.'