See 15 Breathtaking Bird Images From the 16th Annual Audubon Photography Awards
See 15 Breathtaking Bird Images From the 16th Annual Audubon Photography Awards This year’s competition expanded to Chile and Colombia and introduced new prizes focused on migratory species, habitats and conservation Marta Hill - Staff Contributor September 19, 2025 12:02 p.m. A Brandt's cormorant carries red grape algae and seagrass in La Jolla, California. Barbara Swanson / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Plants for Birds Winner, United States and Canada From an island off the coast of Colombia, to northern Chile, to Washington state, the National Audubon Society’s yearly photography contest spread its wings and documented eye-catching birds across much of the Western Hemisphere. The conservation nonprofit revealed the prize winners in its 16th annual contest on Wednesday, featuring 17 overall winners and 15 honorable mentions. The submissions to this year’s contest were judged anonymously by two independent panels. For the first time, photographers from Chile and Colombia were invited to submit their work to the Audubon Photography Awards in a new contest alongside the long-standing one for photographers from the United States and Canada. These two South American countries boast some of the “most astounding avian biodiversity,” write the editors of Audubon magazine, and are home to many migratory birds that might breed in North America. Several of the species featured in this year’s winners—including the royal tern, snow goose and blackburnian warbler, which migrate between the South American countries and Canada and the United States—are vulnerable to climate change, the National Audubon Society says in a statement. With those facts in mind, this year’s contest includes two new categories: Birds Without Borders and Conservation. The former features birds with migratory journeys that cross international boundaries and the latter depicts conservation challenges currently facing avian species. “This is our first year awarding the Conservation prize, and the winning photographs powerfully capture both the challenges birds face and the ways they adapt,” says Sabine Meyer, photography director for the National Audubon Society, in the statement.Grand Prize Winners: Ringed Kingfisher and Magnificent Frigatebird A Ringed kingfisher takes off from the water after diving to hunt fish in Valdivia, Chile. Felipe Esteban Toledo Alarcón / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Grand Prize Winner, Chile and Colombia With every drop of water perfectly frozen mid-splash, the Chile and Columbia contest’s Grand Prize-winning photo captures a ringed kingfisher just after a dive. Photographer Felipe Esteban Toledo Alarcón was trying to photograph frogs’ mating rituals, when he got the opportunity to capture this crisp photo of the blue and white bird. Ringed kingfishers, the largest of the kingfisher species in the Americas, dive headfirst into their hunts for fish—literally. These birds perch at a spot up to 30 feet in the air, keeping a lookout for fish, then dive in when they see one, according to Audubon. “After the bird made six dives, I got the image that I’d been chasing: a kingfisher explosively rising out of the water, displaying its beauty, elegance and power,” the Chilean photographer tells Audubon. Nearly two dozen magnificent frigatebirds fly in front of the sun, which is ringed by a bright halo, in Teacapán, Mexico. Liron Gertsman / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Grand Prize Winner, United States and Canada The winner from the United States and Canada contest captures birds in a different way: in silhouette. Shot looking up at the sun in Mexico, the image by photographer Liron Gertsman reveals a flock of magnificent frigatebirds framed by a sun halo. “This image immediately stood out in this year’s competition. The layers are deep, the silhouettes remarkable and the whimsical, mystical feeling of the image is outstanding,” judge Daniel Dietrich tells Audubon.Conservation Winners: Burrowing Owl and Savanna Hawk A burrowing owl peers out from a stack of lumber on Marco Island, Florida. Jean Hall / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Conservation Winner Jean Hall’s striking image of a burrowing owl is the inaugural Conservation prize winner for the United States- and Canada-based contest. The owl—a “defiant guy,” as she tells Audubon—is sitting in a stack of lumber, a stark contrast to its normal nesting environment of underground burrows. Hall first found this owl on an outing with a biologist as part of her role as a volunteer with Audubon of the Western Everglades’ Owl Watch program. After spotting the bird’s unusual hangout spot on Marco Island in Florida, Hall went back on a handful of occasions, hoping to glimpse the owl again. Unlike most owl species, burrowing owls are diurnal, meaning they are more active during the daytime, at least during breeding season. “You just had to hope. You had to be patient. And finally, the light was decent—because you have to worry about the light—and he popped out at the right time,” Hall tells Smithsonian magazine. Burrowing owls usually nest in underground burrows, either by repurposing tunnels from prairie dog colonies or digging their own holes. The housing search is getting harder for burrowing owls, though, as suitable land is taken up by agriculture and housing developments, according to Audubon. “We humans continue to expand into wild places, often aggressively displacing local wildlife. This image shocked me immediately, because it shows that,” contest judge Lucas Bustamante tells the publication. “This lumber pile used to be a forest—now processed as timber—and yet the burrowing owl still finds habitat in such an unnatural place.” When Hall first started doing wildlife photography, she focused on beauty and behavioral shots, but one of the scientists she’s worked with over the years shifted her perspective on the role of her photographs. “I used to walk away when something awful was happening. I didn’t want to document it,” Hall tells Smithsonian magazine. “These biologists were telling me, ‘You’re going to make much, much more of an impact if you start documenting bad stuff.’ That was like a light bulb went on about treating this more journalistically.” Though she has been entering Audubon’s contest for about a decade and has been recognized in the top 100 images before, this marks Hall’s first time winning an Audubon contest category outright. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “It was a burrowing owl, which in many ways was my spark bird,” a birding term for the species that ignites someone’s interest in the animals. “I fell in love with burrowing owls on Marco [Island] so deeply.” A savanna hawk stands in front of a controlled burn that got out of hand in Colombia. Luis Alberto Peña / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Conservation Winner, Chile and Colombia The conservation winner from the Chile and Colombia contest similarly shows a bird in a bit of an unnatural setting. That is where the similarities end. Luis Alberto Peña’s photo captures a savanna hawk’s intense gaze against the striking background of a controlled burn of a rice field. “Attentive and patient, this bird never strayed from the dense smoke and heat; in fact, it returned again and again, hoping to hunt disoriented animals fleeing the flames,” he tells Audubon. “Before I left, I captured this visual testimony to one of the many ways that wildlife survives and adapts in the face of extreme environmental conditions.”Birds Without Borders Winners: Royal Tern and Snow Goose An adult royal tern feeds its young a fish on San Andrés Island, Colombia. Jacobo Giraldo Trejos / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds Without Borders Winner, Chile and Colombia The winners of the new Birds Without Borders category highlight animals more than 1,000 miles apart. Jacob Giraldo Trejos won the category in the South American contest with an eye-catching image of an adult and juvenile royal tern sharing a meal. Unlike most songbirds, these seabirds have a long adolescence, according to Audubon, with the parents feeding their hatchlings for up to eight months. “Many people think that dedication and affection for our young is exclusive to humans, but nature, as usual, proves us wrong,” the Colombian photographer tells Audubon. “I feel a deep respect for these birds’ efforts: Photographing this moment was a privilege worth every second—and every drop of sweat.” The photo’s technical qualities—its sharpness, soft background and well-controlled light—add to its visual effect, contest judge Natalia Ekelund tells Audubon. “The moment of the food being delivered in mid-flight, with the adult’s wings open and the terns’ gazes intertwined, creates a powerful visual narrative,” Ekelund adds. Thousands of snow geese at the moment the flock started to take off. Yoshiki Nakamura / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds Without Borders Winner, United States and Canada For all the sharpness the photo of royal terns brought, the North American Birds Without Borders winner brought just as much movement and blurring. Shot in Mount Vernon, Washington, photographer Yoshiki Nakamura’s image captures the “mesmerizing mixture of order and chaos” that the simultaneous launch of a flock of snow geese creates, he tells Audubon. “To express this ephemeral choreography, I used a slow shutter speed. The result is what I call a ‘melting flight’: a blend of motion, form and instinct,” Nakamura says to the publication. “What I find most beautiful is how this chaos has coherence. There are no collisions, no commands—just a shared sense of movement.” “Snow geese are creatures of habit,” according to Audubon, with mated pairs returning to the same spot every summer. Young birds learn these migration routes from older generations, creating huge flocks, sometimes numbering more than 10,000, in the same areas year to year. “The blurred wings of the lifting flock dominate upon first look. It takes little time to then get lost in identifying the hundreds of individual geese emerging from the chaos. Your eyes travel nonstop throughout the image as they seek explanation,” contest judge Dietrich tells Audubon. Here are more of the photographs honored in the contest, capturing eye-catching birds, their stunning behaviors and the habitats that help them thrive.Birds in Landscapes Winners: Northern Gannet, Blue-Headed Parrot and Chilean Flamingo Thousands of northern gannets sit atop a dark rock in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Joe Subolefsky / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds in Landscapes Winner, United States and Canada Two blue-headed parrots peer out from a tree near a road in Cali, Colombia. Shamir Shah / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds in Landscapes Colombia Winner A group of Chilean flamingos stand in Puerto Natales, Chile. Caro Aravena Costa / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Birds in Landscapes Chile Winner Plants for Birds Winners: Brandt’s Cormorant and Purple-Backed Thornbill A purple-backed thornbill dips its beak into a cluster of golden floewrs in Caldas, Colombia. Cristian Valencia / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Plants for Birds Colombia Winner A Brandt's cormorant carries red grape algae and seagrass in La Jolla, California. Barbara Swanson / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Plants for Birds Winner, United States and Canada Youth Winners: Blackburnian Warbler and Long-Eared Owl A long-eared owl flies above a marsh in Fremont, California. Parham Pourahmad / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Youth Winner, United States and Canada A blackburnian warbler perches on a branch, holding a month in its beak, in Valle del Cuaca, Colombia. Camilo Sanabria Grajales / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Youth Winner, Colombia and Chile Coastal Birds Winner: American Oystercatcher A black and white American oystercatcher feeds a chick a mollusk in Antofagasta, Chile. Francisco Castro Escobar / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Coastal Bird Chile Winner Female Bird Winner: Chipping Sparrow A chipping sparrow sits on a branch holding fine strands of material in her bill near Boise, Idaho. Sean Pursley / Audubon Photography Awards. 2025 Female Bird Winner, United States and Canada Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.
This year’s competition expanded to Chile and Colombia and introduced new prizes focused on migratory species, habitats and conservation
See 15 Breathtaking Bird Images From the 16th Annual Audubon Photography Awards
This year’s competition expanded to Chile and Colombia and introduced new prizes focused on migratory species, habitats and conservation
Marta Hill - Staff Contributor
From an island off the coast of Colombia, to northern Chile, to Washington state, the National Audubon Society’s yearly photography contest spread its wings and documented eye-catching birds across much of the Western Hemisphere.
The conservation nonprofit revealed the prize winners in its 16th annual contest on Wednesday, featuring 17 overall winners and 15 honorable mentions. The submissions to this year’s contest were judged anonymously by two independent panels.
For the first time, photographers from Chile and Colombia were invited to submit their work to the Audubon Photography Awards in a new contest alongside the long-standing one for photographers from the United States and Canada. These two South American countries boast some of the “most astounding avian biodiversity,” write the editors of Audubon magazine, and are home to many migratory birds that might breed in North America.
Several of the species featured in this year’s winners—including the royal tern, snow goose and blackburnian warbler, which migrate between the South American countries and Canada and the United States—are vulnerable to climate change, the National Audubon Society says in a statement.
With those facts in mind, this year’s contest includes two new categories: Birds Without Borders and Conservation. The former features birds with migratory journeys that cross international boundaries and the latter depicts conservation challenges currently facing avian species.
“This is our first year awarding the Conservation prize, and the winning photographs powerfully capture both the challenges birds face and the ways they adapt,” says Sabine Meyer, photography director for the National Audubon Society, in the statement.
Grand Prize Winners: Ringed Kingfisher and Magnificent Frigatebird
With every drop of water perfectly frozen mid-splash, the Chile and Columbia contest’s Grand Prize-winning photo captures a ringed kingfisher just after a dive. Photographer Felipe Esteban Toledo Alarcón was trying to photograph frogs’ mating rituals, when he got the opportunity to capture this crisp photo of the blue and white bird.
Ringed kingfishers, the largest of the kingfisher species in the Americas, dive headfirst into their hunts for fish—literally. These birds perch at a spot up to 30 feet in the air, keeping a lookout for fish, then dive in when they see one, according to Audubon.
“After the bird made six dives, I got the image that I’d been chasing: a kingfisher explosively rising out of the water, displaying its beauty, elegance and power,” the Chilean photographer tells Audubon.
The winner from the United States and Canada contest captures birds in a different way: in silhouette. Shot looking up at the sun in Mexico, the image by photographer Liron Gertsman reveals a flock of magnificent frigatebirds framed by a sun halo.
“This image immediately stood out in this year’s competition. The layers are deep, the silhouettes remarkable and the whimsical, mystical feeling of the image is outstanding,” judge Daniel Dietrich tells Audubon.
Conservation Winners: Burrowing Owl and Savanna Hawk
Jean Hall’s striking image of a burrowing owl is the inaugural Conservation prize winner for the United States- and Canada-based contest. The owl—a “defiant guy,” as she tells Audubon—is sitting in a stack of lumber, a stark contrast to its normal nesting environment of underground burrows.
Hall first found this owl on an outing with a biologist as part of her role as a volunteer with Audubon of the Western Everglades’ Owl Watch program. After spotting the bird’s unusual hangout spot on Marco Island in Florida, Hall went back on a handful of occasions, hoping to glimpse the owl again. Unlike most owl species, burrowing owls are diurnal, meaning they are more active during the daytime, at least during breeding season.
“You just had to hope. You had to be patient. And finally, the light was decent—because you have to worry about the light—and he popped out at the right time,” Hall tells Smithsonian magazine.
Burrowing owls usually nest in underground burrows, either by repurposing tunnels from prairie dog colonies or digging their own holes. The housing search is getting harder for burrowing owls, though, as suitable land is taken up by agriculture and housing developments, according to Audubon.
“We humans continue to expand into wild places, often aggressively displacing local wildlife. This image shocked me immediately, because it shows that,” contest judge Lucas Bustamante tells the publication. “This lumber pile used to be a forest—now processed as timber—and yet the burrowing owl still finds habitat in such an unnatural place.”
When Hall first started doing wildlife photography, she focused on beauty and behavioral shots, but one of the scientists she’s worked with over the years shifted her perspective on the role of her photographs.
“I used to walk away when something awful was happening. I didn’t want to document it,” Hall tells Smithsonian magazine. “These biologists were telling me, ‘You’re going to make much, much more of an impact if you start documenting bad stuff.’ That was like a light bulb went on about treating this more journalistically.”
Though she has been entering Audubon’s contest for about a decade and has been recognized in the top 100 images before, this marks Hall’s first time winning an Audubon contest category outright.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “It was a burrowing owl, which in many ways was my spark bird,” a birding term for the species that ignites someone’s interest in the animals. “I fell in love with burrowing owls on Marco [Island] so deeply.”
The conservation winner from the Chile and Colombia contest similarly shows a bird in a bit of an unnatural setting. That is where the similarities end. Luis Alberto Peña’s photo captures a savanna hawk’s intense gaze against the striking background of a controlled burn of a rice field.
“Attentive and patient, this bird never strayed from the dense smoke and heat; in fact, it returned again and again, hoping to hunt disoriented animals fleeing the flames,” he tells Audubon. “Before I left, I captured this visual testimony to one of the many ways that wildlife survives and adapts in the face of extreme environmental conditions.”
Birds Without Borders Winners: Royal Tern and Snow Goose
The winners of the new Birds Without Borders category highlight animals more than 1,000 miles apart. Jacob Giraldo Trejos won the category in the South American contest with an eye-catching image of an adult and juvenile royal tern sharing a meal. Unlike most songbirds, these seabirds have a long adolescence, according to Audubon, with the parents feeding their hatchlings for up to eight months.
“Many people think that dedication and affection for our young is exclusive to humans, but nature, as usual, proves us wrong,” the Colombian photographer tells Audubon. “I feel a deep respect for these birds’ efforts: Photographing this moment was a privilege worth every second—and every drop of sweat.”
The photo’s technical qualities—its sharpness, soft background and well-controlled light—add to its visual effect, contest judge Natalia Ekelund tells Audubon.
“The moment of the food being delivered in mid-flight, with the adult’s wings open and the terns’ gazes intertwined, creates a powerful visual narrative,” Ekelund adds.
For all the sharpness the photo of royal terns brought, the North American Birds Without Borders winner brought just as much movement and blurring.
Shot in Mount Vernon, Washington, photographer Yoshiki Nakamura’s image captures the “mesmerizing mixture of order and chaos” that the simultaneous launch of a flock of snow geese creates, he tells Audubon.
“To express this ephemeral choreography, I used a slow shutter speed. The result is what I call a ‘melting flight’: a blend of motion, form and instinct,” Nakamura says to the publication. “What I find most beautiful is how this chaos has coherence. There are no collisions, no commands—just a shared sense of movement.”
“Snow geese are creatures of habit,” according to Audubon, with mated pairs returning to the same spot every summer. Young birds learn these migration routes from older generations, creating huge flocks, sometimes numbering more than 10,000, in the same areas year to year.
“The blurred wings of the lifting flock dominate upon first look. It takes little time to then get lost in identifying the hundreds of individual geese emerging from the chaos. Your eyes travel nonstop throughout the image as they seek explanation,” contest judge Dietrich tells Audubon.
Here are more of the photographs honored in the contest, capturing eye-catching birds, their stunning behaviors and the habitats that help them thrive.
Birds in Landscapes Winners: Northern Gannet, Blue-Headed Parrot and Chilean Flamingo
Plants for Birds Winners: Brandt’s Cormorant and Purple-Backed Thornbill
Youth Winners: Blackburnian Warbler and Long-Eared Owl
Coastal Birds Winner: American Oystercatcher
Female Bird Winner: Chipping Sparrow
