This 12 months’s Chook Photographer of the Yr competitors attracted greater than 33,000 entries from throughout the globe, which finally delivered a 2025 winners’ record that captures the sweetness, drama and variety of winged wildlife at its finest.
A wide ranging picture of a powerful frigatebird towards a complete photo voltaic eclipse earned Canadian photographer Liron Gertsman the highest prize and £3,500 (US$4,300). Taken off the coast of Mazatlán, Mexico, the shot took Gertsman greater than a 12 months’s preparation, and the ultimate outcome – snapped from a ship – was captured throughout an eclipse’s “diamond ring” part, a second that lasts simply seconds. Thankfully for him, the high-stakes mission paid off.
Liron Gertsman/Chook Photographer of the Yr
“This {photograph} is a hanging reminder of what human creativity can obtain,” mentioned competitors director Will Nicholls, who praised Gertsman’s shot for combining technical mastery and inventive imaginative and prescient, at a time when AI-generated imagery is flooding the panorama and undermining what makes picture contests so private and particular.
Tomasz Michalski/Chook Photographer of the Yr
In the meantime, the Younger Chook Photographer of the Yr prize was awarded to 16-year-old Tomasz Michalski from Poland, for his hanging silhouette of a black vulture.
Alex Pansier/Chook Photographer of the Yr
Photographer Alex Pansier (Netherlands) captured this carrion crow (Corvus corone) close to a freeway, the chook perched on a subject of photo voltaic panels. The shot makes a hanging assertion about inexperienced power infrastructure and wildlife. Renewable power, whereas important for sustainability, typically takes up area that might in any other case serve nature.
Franco Banfi/Chook Photographer of the Yr
The annual competitors additionally raised hundreds of {dollars} for the conservation charity Birds on the Brink, which funds grassroots tasks worldwide. You may view the whole assortment of excellent finalists and winners in our gallery.
For those who’re feeling impressed, now you can enter the 2026 competitors at birdpoty.com.
Supply: Bird Photographer of the Year
