What a hoot: 2026 Bird Photographer of the Year winners
Fellow bird nerds, it's time to reveal the winners of one the key nature photography competitions on the calendar. Over the past year, more than 24,000 images were submitted to the Bird Photographer of the Year awards, but ultimately just a handful were selected across the contest's categories.
This year, a striking image of a northern gannet (Morus bassanus) in Scottish waters has earned UK snapper Henley Spiers the grand prize. This is also some good press for the species, which has been rocked by avian influenza outbreaks across North American nesting sites in the past few years.
Our cover image is not the only owl that stars this year, either. Swedish photographer Ivan Sjögren was caught in the act, spying on a short-eared owl (Asio flammeus) in Canada. It scored Sjögren the Gold Award in the Birds in Flight category.
"This was a magical evening,...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to newatlas.com. To see the full text click HERE
