Matías Antonio Cortés Calderón / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsRinged kingfisher. “It was a cold Wednesday morning in the city. The waterfront was unusually quiet compared to weekends when there are crowds of tourists. While waiting for my bus, I came across a male kingfisher calmly searching for fish. I have always been fascinated by their patience while looking for prey.” Dalcahue, Lagos, Chile.Lisa Kaplowitz / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsCosta’s hummingbird. “I am especially enamored with the resident Costa’s hummingbirds of Palm Springs. Inspired by the pioneering work of Australian photographer Christian Spencer, I shot this photo shortly after sunrise. I love how the sunlight diffracts through his wings, creating a prismatic rainbow effect.” Palm Springs, California.Gail Bisson / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsCommon merganser. “I spend many hours at this pond photographing waterfowl in winter. The pond is fed by the ocean, so it remains ice free. In March, the occasional seal will swim into the pond to feed on the abundant flatfish. I thought the seal looked sweet holding the fish in its flippers and started to photograph it. Suddenly, a common merganser appeared in the frame. I did not even see it approach. The interaction lasted less than a second, but I was able to get three frames, and this was the best.” Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada.Protik Mohammad Hossain / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsWhite-crowned sparrow. “I had long had a vision of capturing a moment where wildlife, blooming wildflowers, and a glowing Mount Rainier all came together in one frame. But last spring, when I finally found myself in the right place at the right time, I faced several technical challenges. I had scanned the vibrant field of lupines in front of me, hoping to spot a bird, when first one white-crowned sparrow, and then a second, appeared and began feeding on the flowers.” Puyallup, Washington.León Felipe Jimenez / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsYellow-eared parrot. “At dusk, yellow-eared parrots return to their homes in dead wax palms, Colombia’s national tree. I had positioned myself in a stand of palms, but I had no way of knowing which nest the parrots would return to. I focused on one cavity, crossed my fingers, and waited. I was lucky: One parrot flew into the nest.” Anaime, Cajamarca, Tolima, Colombia.Gero Heine / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsCommon ostrich. “My travel partner and I were on a soft, sandy road when I spotted these three male ostriches following each other. The trio seemed like three bachelors looking for trouble. The tallest sand dunes on Earth juxtaposed with the three subjects were striking to me, perhaps because we tend to visually prefer odd numbers.” Sossusvlei, Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia.Yoshiki Nakamura / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsWhooper swan. “Whooper swans gather in the open waters of Lake Kussharo, where hot springs rise to the surface and keep parts of the lake from freezing. Typically, these graceful birds play and float individually, each immersed in their own serene world. However, there was a magical moment when many simultaneously raised their heads, all gazing in the same direction as if drawn by an unseen cue.” Hokkaido, Japan.Michael Yee / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsAnna’s hummingbird. “Many birds enjoy the water fountain at Ardenwood Historic Farm in the East Bay. On this day, I saw warblers, tanagers, and finches fly back and forth between the fountain and adjacent trees. But the hummingbirds were most entertaining. While most other birds bathed in the fountain or perched at the edge to sip, hummingbirds made a sport out of drinking airborne water droplets. They seemed to have the ability to manipulate time and the speed of the water as they hovered over the fountain and danced gracefully with the drops.” Fremont, California.Trish Oster / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsPied-billed grebe. “A juvenile grebe was foraging in our little local pond. As I was observing the bird, it dove down and came up with a very large non-native red swamp crayfish. At first, I thought it had bitten off more than it could chew. Since I hand-hold my camera, I set a higher shutter speed of 1/3200 sec to compensate for the movement and lowered my exposure to -0.3 EV to make the grebe and the crayfish stand out. After much effort, the grebe miraculously swallowed the crayfish whole.” Legacy Park, Malibu, California.Álvaro Tapia González / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsKelp gull. “I spent months planning this shot, but when I got to the coast, the weather turned against me: sudden clouds, fog, and changing conditions thwarted several attempts. On this day, the sky was nearly completely covered with clouds. I had already decided not to go out, but my partner encouraged me, pointing out that the horizon was clear, so I should give it a try. With some hesitation, I headed out to the site. I knew the moment was approaching when the birds in the area would begin looking for shelter to rest after hours of fishing. The light, the birds’ movement, and the landscape finally aligned.” Pichilemu, Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins, Chile.Sarah Killingsworth / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsCommon raven. “At sunrise, I set out to photograph threatened western snowy plovers, but it was this raven—bathed in golden light, framed by crashing waves—that captured my attention. The raven methodically searched the tide line, hopping on driftwood and inspecting washed-up debris. The ravens’ presence here, fueled by human waste and ranching operations in the National Seashore, poses a threat to the snowy plovers—especially ever since the corvids learned to recognize protective exclosures and prey on the breeding plover adults inside. But the beautiful raven isn’t the villain. It’s a symbol of how humans reshape natural dynamics and alter the balance between species.” Drakes Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, California.Michael Dreese / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsWestern cattle-egret. “On a foggy morning, I went to photograph shorebirds on a 1,000-foot-long fishing pier tucked behind the small community of Indian Lakes Estate. The deck lights remained on because of the low light, and I noticed a large flock of cattle-egrets. Every few seconds one of the birds would take flight and land a short distance away. My goal was to capture a bird in flight framed precisely between the lights.” Polk County, Florida.Adam Reinstein / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsRuby-throated hummingbird. “Every September for the past five years, I have photographed ruby-throated hummingbirds as they feast on flowers in Longfellow Gardens. For two weeks, I start and end each day by capturing them feeding, flying, perching, and preening on their layover as they migrate southward. The beautiful blooms provide an ever-changing kaleidoscope of backdrops, and like mixing pigments on a palette, I use my camera and lens to blend the colors of the foliage on my canvases. To capture this image, I moved to frame the portrait as the hummingbird swiveled its head from side to side, watching a honeybee buzz around. As the bee landed and faced the hummingbird, I fired off just one shot. An instant later, the bee was gone.” Minneapolis, MinnesotaArlene Moir-Swinton / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsSandhill crane. “Florida’s sandhill cranes are year-round residents, and while protected, their population is at risk due to increased development. Trinity, located in Pasco County, was once farmland, cattle ranches, and countless tree lines, but the landscape is changing. A group of locals, including myself, keep track of the new crane families as the number of houses and communities grow. This pair shares a lake with a new neighborhood that borders Trinity College of Florida. The parents were teaching the young colts how to use their bills to forage for small insects along the water’s edge, under new trees that will provide future habitat.” Trinity, Florida.Simon Smith / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsGlaucous-winged gull. “Bears and gulls have a symbiotic relationship on the coastal mudflats of Alaska. Gulls call to alert the bears when the tide is low enough to clam, and the bears come to dig up the clams, leaving the leftovers behind for gulls to eat. I wanted to capture this relationship from the perspective of the gull, so I got low and waited for a bear to walk into the foreground to create a frame for the bird.” Lake Clark National Park, Alaska.Sarah Hong / 2025 Audubon Photography AwardsWhite-eyed parakeet. “One morning during our visit to Iguaçu National Park, home to an awe-inspiring stretch of waterfalls spanning 1.7 miles along the border of Brazil and Argentina, my dad and I set out at dawn. Instead of the usual throngs of tourists, the viewing platform was occupied by a band of coatis, which scattered as we approached. We soaked in the views as the mist shifted from rosy-pink to gold to white—and were soaked in return by the spray. As the sky brightened, flocks of green parakeets began to stir, but their swift and erratic movement made adjusting the shutter speed and locking focus a challenge. I waited, wiping droplets from my lens, until I could capture this fleeting moment.” Iguaçu National Park, Paraná State, Brazil.
Be sure to visit the Audubon Society’s full Top 100 listing to see all of these amazing photographs.
