The 2025 Bird Photographer of the Year Gives a Lesson in Planning and Persistence — Colossal

The results of greater than a 12 months of planning and a couple of week of in-person scouting alongside the coast of Sinaloa, Mexico, a exactly timed portrait of a Magnificent frigatebird flying in entrance of a complete photo voltaic eclipse was captured by Canadian photographer Liron Gertsman. Winner of the 2025 Bird Photographer of the Year competitors, Gertsman’s picture demonstrates the time and effort that goes into documenting among the world’s most exceptional birds.

This 12 months’s contest noticed greater than 33,000 entries from photographers all around the world, together with three youth classes. With conservation on the coronary heart of its mission, the competitors additionally donated greater than £5,000 to Birds on the Brink, a charity that funds grassroots efforts to learn avians.

Categories like Urban Birds, Best Portrait, and Birds within the Environment showcase a variety of the feathered creatures’ behaviors and habitats. Steffen Foerster’s portrayal of a bloody-faced Southern big petrel, for instance, will get up-close-and-personal with the tube-nosed seabird after it’s loved a hearty meal. And Luca Lorenz focuses on the beady eye of a tricky Alpine chough in the course of a snowstorm within the Swiss Alps. Benoit Henrion peeks again at a trio of Western barn owls which have staked out niches in a church in France, and Baiju Patil captures a bunch of Barn swallows darting above vibrant marigolds in India.

Explore the winners’ gallery on the competition’s website, the place you may also buy a ebook of this 12 months’s prime photographs, revealed by Princeton University Press. The 2026 competitors can be now open for entries.