16 Winners Of Audubon Photography Awards

The National Audubon Society has introduced the profitable chook images of the 2025 Audubon Photography Awards that includes beautiful imagery that highlights the wonder and pleasure of birds and interesting avian behaviors.

Celebrating its sixteenth yr, the images contest options photographs from professionals, amateurs and younger folks underscoring not solely the fantastic thing about birds but in addition the story of hemispheric chook conservation, the methods birds join folks throughout geographies and ecosystems and the enjoyment of capturing all of it by way of pictures and movies.

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This yr, the awards have expanded to Chile and Colombia and in addition embody a brand new Birds Without Borders Prize, depicting birds with migratory paths that cross worldwide boundaries, and the Conservation Prize, illustrating conservation challenges that birds face and strategies to deal with these challenges to assist them thrive.

Chile and Colombia are residence to among the world’s most biodiverse landscapes and seascapes. Many of the birds that migrate between these international locations and Canada and the United States are weak to extinction attributable to local weather change and lack of biodiversity.

Audubon works to guard these birds by way of coordinated efforts throughout international locations and areas to make sure their survival — together with species featured on this yr’s awards just like the Royal Tern, Snow Goose and Blackburnian Warbler.

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“Birds are telling us – in their behavior, in their dwindling numbers, in their silence – that we must take action now, and that we must take action where birds need us most, from the Arctic to Chile and everywhere in between,” the organizers write.

The Grand Prize for Colombia and Chile was awarded to Chilean photographer Felipe Esteban Toledo who, whereas trying to {photograph} frogs’ mating rituals at a lagoon in Valdivia’s Parque Saval, seen a pair of Ringed Kingfishers looking fish.

The Grand Prize for the U.S. and Canada went to Canadian photographer Liron Gertsman for his picture of Frigatebirds as they handed a surprising halo within the sky. Frigatebirds are a standard sight in lots of coastal cities in Mexico. As a kleptoparasitic species, they might look to steal a meal from different seabirds, or from native fishermen.

Grand Prize Bird Photos

The Grand Prize Winner for the brand new Colombia and Chile class was awarded to this picture of a blue-and-gray kingfisher flying out of the water, making a splash round its moist physique, shaggy crest, white collar and rufous stomach. Countless tiny droplets are in sharp focus.

The largest of the six kingfisher species within the Americas, the Ringed Kingfisher ranges from Texas to southern South America. In tropical areas, the place 4 or 5 species might happen collectively, the birds keep away from competitors by chasing totally different prey from totally different heights. The smallest might sit simply inches above the water searching for tiny fish or bugs. The Ringed Kingfisher perches as much as 30 toes above the floor, expecting medium-size fish after which plunging in headfirst with a mighty splash.

This picture of almost two dozen frigatebirds flying throughout a darkish blue sky is the Grand Prize Winner and the Birds in Landscapes Winner for the United States and Canada.

Their lengthy, slim wings and forked tails stand out in opposition to wispy clouds and the solar, which is surrounded by a vibrant halo.

It looks as if evolution’s merciless sensible joke, however frigatebirds are true seabirds that should keep away from touchdown on the ocean. An person that lands on the floor might battle to take off once more and if its feathers change into soaked, it could drown.

So frigatebirds fly over the ocean for days or even weeks at a time searching for meals. They are nicely geared up for the duty: A frigatebird’s feathers collectively weigh twice as a lot as its skeleton.

Birds, Plants, Landscapes

A hummingbird with vibrant hues of electrical purple, black, and specks of yellow hovers within the heart of the body because it dips its lengthy beak right into a cluster of golden flowers in Los Nevados National Natural Park, Caldas, Colombia. The space is residence to a sub-páramo ecosystem, a cool forest wealthy in biodiversity.

In the American tropics, many hummingbird species can coexist as a result of they differ in invoice shapes and feeding behaviors that developed with native vegetation. Very long-billed species hover at lengthy, tubular flowers, whereas curve-billed ones might specialize on curved blooms.

The Purple-backed Thornbill, with the shortest invoice of any hummingbird, typically clings to clusters of small flowers like these, generally reaching the nectar by inserting its invoice by way of slits within the base of the flower tube. It additionally eats tiny bugs, catching them in midair.

A Burrowing Owl, framed by a pile of lumber boards full with numbers, friends straight and boldly on the digicam in Marco Island, Florida.

This defiant man determined to make use of an enormous lumber pile as his roost for days. Burrowing Owl habitat is sort of gone, particularly on Marco Island, however the birds’ toughness is tough to defeat.

The Burrowing Owl requires massive tracts of open floor, ideally with areas of naked soil, for its underground nesting burrows. Such landscapes have been as soon as frequent in North America — each within the west (the place prairie canine colonies offered an abundance of holes) and in Florida (the place the owls usually dig their very own).

But the unfold of agriculture and extermination of prairie canine have sharply lowered the owl’s western populations. In Florida, remaining areas of open floor are being consumed by housing developments.

About 25 flamingos stand in shallow water on a seashore, their backlit our bodies casting shadows on the water as a low, flat layer of clouds and looming mountain silhouettes type the background. Warm daylight envelopes the scene. Despite only a few daytime hours, the daylight in Patagonia is beautiful in winter.

Many consider flamingos as tropical birds however three South American species reside in chilly climates. All might be discovered on the Altiplano, the plateau between the very best ridges of the southern Andes, the place they use their odd payments to filter tiny crustaceans, bugs, and diatoms from shallow, salty lakes.

The most quite a few of the three, the Chilean Flamingo, additionally lives at sea degree, all the best way to the frigid, excessive south of the continent.

The blue heads of two parrots emerge from a gap in a curved tree department above a busy avenue in Cali, Colombia. Down under, folks in automobiles and buses are going about their each day enterprise because the parrots observe the people, who, of their rush to progress, miss out on every kind of expressions of life.

Among the extra widespread and customary parrot species in northern South America, pairs or flocks of Blue-headed Parrots fly with deep, fast wingbeats and shrill cries at treetop degree. They appear extra adaptable than many different parrots and might even thrive round metropolis edges, so long as every pair can discover a tree cavity massive sufficient to carry their nest.

A black cormorant, blue eyes fastened and wings sweep ahead because it carries grassy materials and a strand of pink bulbous algae to its nest.

The picture was captured in January in La Jolla, California, when cormorants have been constructing their nests. This chook carried not solely the standard seagrass but in addition a strand of crimson grape algae, which glowed like translucent jewels.

We won’t consider seabirds as being reliant on vegetation, however lots of the cormorants use plant materials to construct substantial nests on rocky ledges. The male does a lot of the gathering, however each mother and father organize the nest.

Birds Without Borders

A white and grey Royal Tern hovers within the air because it feeds fish to a juvenile perched on a railing. The grownup tern flew tirelessly, searching for fish to feed its younger, which patiently waited.

While most songbirds are impartial inside weeks of leaving the nest, Royal Terns have a protracted adolescence. Their mother and father might feed them for as much as eight months, even because the household migrates collectively, some flying all the best way from the jap United States to South America’s Pacific coast.

Thousands of white geese, their particular person our bodies barely seen, fill the body as their blurred yellow-and white wings create an summary sample.

Snow Geese are creatures of behavior. A feminine able to breed for the primary time often returns to a spot close to the place she hatched, adopted by a male she had met within the south; they mate for all times and can return to the identical spot each summer time.

Every winter, tens of hundreds migrate from Siberia to Washington’s Skagit Valley, the place they keep from October to April. Massive flocks — some numbering greater than 10,000 birds — take off collectively in breathtaking, synchronized movement.

When hazard nears, the primary few birds flap their wings, sending a cascading sign that triggers a collective launch. Although they transfer as one, every chook follows its personal rhythm and course, making a mesmerizing combination of order and chaos.

A small shorebird with white plumage dotted with brown and gold highlights rests in water. Despite the serenity of the second, the chook, often known as Greater Yellowlegs within the North and Pitotoy Grande within the South, was looking.

The roofs of the encompassing homes tinted the water crimson and delicate golden ripples encircled the chook.

Most members of the sandpiper household are typically sociable. Some collect in dense flocks throughout migration and non-breeding season, feeding on tiny organisms that abound on tidal flats.

But the Greater Yellowlegs is the alternative. Usually solitary or in very small flocks, it wades in shallow water to pursue extra dispersed prey, together with massive aquatic bugs and small fish.

Breeding at scattered ponds in boreal forest throughout southern Alaska and central Canada, it spreads out to wintering websites all the best way from the southern United States to the southern tip of South America.

It was winter, so nightfall got here early in Chile as a small owl with yellow eyes and fluffy brown plumage perched on a thorny department surrounded by crimson rose hips and the sundown’s blue tint within the background. Its profile was unmistakable: a chuncho.

Pygmy-owls are widespread, with about two dozen species scattered throughout 5 continents, though there are seldom multiple or two species discovered at any given locale. Very small (as their title suggests) and sometimes lively by day, they hunt small birds, rodents, massive bugs, lizards and different creatures, trying to find prey after which attacking with quick, swift flights.

The Austral Pygmy-Owl is the one consultant in southern South America, the place it’s common in beech forests and different open woods and even flies into metropolis parks.

Shorebirds stand on a darkish, rocky floor in opposition to darkish clouds as blurred waves crash in opposition to the rocks. Hundreds of Sanderlings flocked to the rocky shoreline to feed.

Sanderlings are birds of extremes. Almost all their breeding websites lie north of the Arctic Circle, on open tundra. But after they depart these distant areas, they might fly to shorelines virtually anyplace on the earth, spending the winter alongside coasts from Japan, England and Canada to the southern reaches of Australia, Africa, and South America. There they give attention to the water’s shifting edge, the place waves crash on seashores or rocks. Dashing forwards and backwards, the Sanderlings snatch tiny invertebrates left behind by every retreating wave.

While pursuing an elusive male Rufous Hummingbird at Stonewall Peak in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, California, Taryn Ware noticed a snag filled with the riches that give Acorn Woodpeckers their title.

Soon, a feminine appeared.

Acorn Woodpeckers are famed for (and named for) their food-storing habits. Living in colonies, they work collectively to create “granary” bushes the place they drill quite a few holes and conceal an acorn in every. All members of the colony dine on the acorns later.

Unlike many birds, most woodpeckers have more-or-less equal intercourse roles. Female and male take part in harvesting and storing acorns, participate in incubating eggs and feeding younger. A single nest could also be tended by a number of adults of each sexes.

A brown feminine duck rests amid dashing water. A collection of rocks level to the distant chook because the currents seem like clouds within the sky.

Only just a few duck species are tailored to reside in dashing streams. The well-named Torrent Ducks, denizens of the Andes from Venezuela to Argentina, are the final word examples.

They favor steep, slim gorges, diving and swimming beneath the floor the place the waters leap and tumble over boulders. Big toes and powerful legs propel them by way of the swift present, whereas their lengthy tails assist present steering.

Baby Torrent Ducks enter their turbulent world early: They can swim expertly inside just a few hours after hatching.

Looking for condors at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park in California at daybreak, Jake Hilygus discovered a pair of Common Ravens hopping from boulder to boulder, by no means leaving one another’s aspect. They confirmed no concern and appeared curious concerning the digicam. They preened one another’s feathers and nestled shut collectively within the tender morning gentle.

Indigenous cultures all around the Northern Hemisphere have admired Common Ravens for millennia. Considered to be among the many most clever of birds, with a degree of consciousness that appears eerily human, the members of a mated pair of ravens keep collectively in any respect seasons, foraging cooperatively and even participating in lively play. The two birds typically perch very shut collectively, preening one another’s feathers — a habits referred to as allopreening — which in all probability helps strengthen their bond.

Here you’ll be able to see all of the winners and honorable-mention-awarded chook images in addition to the highest 100 photographs and movies.

The subsequent contest will open on January 15, 2026.

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