The 2026 edition of Bird Photographer of the Year—the world’s most comprehensive nature photography competition tracking the trace of feather, wing, and wind—has concluded. Over 24,000 entries from around the globe bring to light the hidden stories of the avian world: from penguins plunging into ocean depths to urban dwellers adapting to city architecture, mesmerizing courtship dances to fierce struggles for survival on sheer cliffs. Yet this expansive selection offers more than a visual spectacle; it brings into sharp focus the plea of fragile ecosystems facing human-induced threats such as global warming, habitat loss, and poaching.
A Torpedo in the Azure Depths: Henley Spiers and Sunball Rocket
This year’s grand prize went to Henley Spiers, who captured the mesmerizing underwater silence off the Shetland Islands in northern Scotland. Titled Sunball Rocket, the photograph freezes the moment a northern gannet—having spotted its prey mid-flight—pierces the water’s surface like an arrow within seconds.
Hitting the water at speeds reaching 86 kilometres per hour, this majestic seabird locks its wings to its body to assume a hydrodynamic form, transforming within Spiers’s frame into a mass of light gliding through deep blue. The Scottish coastline hosts nearly 40 per cent of the global population of this species; nevertheless, the region’s massive colonies have recently suffered severe losses from avian flu outbreaks. Spiers’s image serves as a poignant reminder of the ecological vulnerability underpinning this formidable hunting prowess.
Body Language, Tenderness, and Urban Irony on Frame
Each photograph featured in the selection evokes a film scene directed by nature itself:
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The Tenderness of Shelter: In Donald Chin’s image captured in Australia, a tawny frogmouth transforms into a living shield, gathering its two chicks beneath its wings under torrential rain—the protective instinct in its quietest, most unadorned state.
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The Volume of Light: Framed by Thomas Deliberto across the Utah landscape, a greater sage-grouse presents an almost sculptural portrait, the backlighting of the evening sun illuminating the outline of every single feather.
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A Moment Eye-to-Eye: The split-second encounter where Ivan Sjögren comes face-to-face with a short-eared owl just above the Canadian prairies bends time through the high-tension charge of a gaze suspended in mid-air.
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Rhythms of the City: Caught by Gianluca Damiani on the streets of Rome, a yellow-legged gull posing beside a wall etched with graffiti of a flying seagull adds an editorial touch to the humorous line between urban life and wildlife.
Among the selection’s most striking dimensions are the images in the conservation category. Kent Stuart’s photograph of a great blue heron unable to open its beak after becoming entangled in fishing line confronts us directly with the stark reality of human destruction standing immediately alongside natural beauty.
