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Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Wild and wonderful birds
Today a dinosaur might have sung to you. It might have pecked at the crumbs from your lunch and flown over your head.
That’s because birds are modern dinosaurs. They evolved from meat-eating dinosaurs known as theropods – the same group that Tyrannosaurus rex belongs to. The oldest bird fossils are around 160 million years old.
Today, there are more than 11,000 species of bird inhabiting every continent on Earth. These images selected from Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibitions past and present demonstrate their surprising and often shocking behaviours.
So if you’re buzzing about buzzards or raving about ravens, visit our Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition to uncover more about the astonishing avians we share our planet with.
Precious Rocks by Samual Stone
Precious Rocks © Samual Stone, Highly Commended in the Behaviour: Birds Category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024.
Jackdaws are known for their intelligence and this one, photographed by Samual Stone, appears to be no exception. Samual watched as it gathered stones for its nest, having seemingly arranged them in size order.
Each year jackdaws build new nests, making use of all sorts of different materials including twigs, branches, feathers, wool, moss and animal dung. This one, spotted in London’s Bushy Park, clearly had a preference for small stones – a good fit for its nest, which was located in a hole in the trunk of a half-fallen willow tree.
See the image for yourself in this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.
Silence for the Snake Show by Hadrien Lalagüe
Silence for the Snake Show © Hadrien Lalagüe, Winner of the Behaviour: Birds Category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023.
For six months Hadrien had kept his camera trap safe from high humidity, plastic-eating ants and damage from poachers. It was all worth it to document this one-off moment free from human distraction in the rainforest surrounding the Guiana Space Center.
A group of five grey-winged trumpeters, so named for their loud, trumpet-like calls, stand motionless as a three-metre-long boa constrictor slithers past. Trumpeters are foragers, spending most of their time on the forest floor looking for ripe fruits, insects and even small snakes. Danger could strike at any moment, as the birds aren’t strong flyers and tend to flee on foot. The boa could easily have made a meal out of any one of them!
Sparring Godwits by Liam O’Donnell
Sparring Godwits © Liam O’Donnell, Highly Commended in the 11–14 Years Category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024.
Black-tailed godwits are frequent winter visitors to Ireland’s Broadmeadow River Estuary, migrating from their summer breeding grounds in Iceland. Liam’s image records the moment a territory dispute between two birds turns violent.
Liam spent hours lying in the mud in the godwit’s wetland habitat in order to get this memorable photo. The loss of wetland habitats globally is having a serious impact on migratory bird numbers. Godwits are declining because wetland areas are being drained to make them more suitable for farming, while droughts and rising sea levels are disrupting the balance of saltwater and freshwater in estuaries, putting the species at risk.
See this photo in this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, open until 29 June 2025.
Firebirds by Elza Friedländer
Firebirds © Elza Friedländer, Highly Commended in the Behaviour: Birds Category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023.
Against the shimmering heat of a controlled fire in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, Elza photographed a pair of white storks against the black, burnt ground.
In the aftermath of a controlled fire hundreds of birds, especially storks and kites, flocked to the area. While most of the birds kept their distance, the storks flew to the front, searching for fleeing prey to snack on such as worms, insects, scorpions, spiders and even small vertebrates if they were lucky.
It was a stork from Central Africa that first proved that birds were able to migrate long distances. In 1882 a stork arrived in Germany with a Central African spear through its neck, proving that birds were capable of long-distance flight. Before this, when birds disappeared during winter, Europeans had thought they were hibernating.
The Art of Courtship by Rachel Bigsby
The Art of Courtship © Rachel Bigsby, Category Winner in the Natural Artistry Category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023.
Gannets usually mate for life and greet each other by stretching out their wings, knocking their bills together and bowing. They are very romantic birds and will also give each other gifts of flowers or grass stems to reinforce their bonds.
Braving a turbulent sea swell, Rachel photographed this pair of gannets standing on an isolated edge. They were perfectly framed by the guano-painted curves of the sandstone cliffs, their necks intertwined. Guano – bird poo – is mined in places across the world and then used as a fertiliser on crops, but our demand for it is taking a toll on the birds that make it. Read more about our deadly obsession with bird poo.
Leaving the Nest by Sasha Jumanca
Leaving the Nest © Sasha Jumanca, Highly Commended in the 10 Years and Under Category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024.
Two tawny owlets were perched together on a branch in a park near Sasha’s home, curiously watching people walking by. Owlets leave the nest before they can fly, in a phase known as branching. They’ll jump, flutter and climb around the branches of nearby trees while begging for food from their parents. This lasts for several weeks before they eventually grow their flight muscles and feathers and fly away.
Sasha had seen tawny owls in the neighbourhood before but was surprised to discover these so close to the heart of Munich. They were losing their fluffy, white down feathers and he wanted to document this time of transition – still young and vulnerable, but soon to fly away.
See this photo in this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, open until 29 June 2025.
Final Impression by Adrienn Vincze
Final Impression © Adrienn Vincze, Highly Commended in the Urban Wildlife Category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023.
Adrienn transformed the aftermath of a pigeon crashing into a window into a starry universe. She placed a black card over the feather dust on the outside of the windowpane and used natural light to create the magical image.
Across the world, more than one billion birds crash into windows every year and even if they don’t break their necks, they may die from their injuries. At night artificial lights attract migrating birds, causing them to collide with windows. During the day collisions are caused by birds seeing sky or vegetation reflected in windows and assuming they can fly through.
Discover small actions you can take to help birds avoid windows, such as using UV-reflecting stickers, in our article on how to help birds in towns and cities.
Starling Murmuration by Daniel Dencescu
Starling Murmuration © Daniel Dencescu, Highly Commended in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023 People’s Choice Award.
Starlings are social and noisy birds that spend a large part of the year in flocks. When returning to their roosts from a day of foraging, they sometimes gather in large numbers and perform mesmerising aerial displays known as murmurations.
These not only enable them to exchange vital information about good feeding areas but also offer protection from predators such as peregrine falcons. Daniel was captivated by the organic shapes the starlings made as they moved. He spent hours following the starlings in the city and suburbs of Rome waiting for a spectacle. He was finally rewarded when the flock created the shape of a giant bird.
The Listening Bird by Nick Kanakis
The Listening Bird © Nick Kanakis, Winner of the Behaviour: Birds Category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022.
The grey-breasted wood wren is known for its loud musical songs and rasping calls but is a shy, ground-dwelling bird that’s often heard and not seen.
Despite its elusive nature, Nick managed to secure a glimpse of the bird’s prey-detecting technique. Pressing its ear to the ground, the wren listens for the sounds of small insects moving around to feast on.
This technique is not unique to wrens. It’s used by other birds, including the Eurasian blackbird. When Nick spotted the wren, to avoid scaring it away he found a clear patch of leaf litter and waited patiently for it to come to him.
The Blue Bower by Keith Horton
The Blue Bower © Keith Horton, Highly Commended in the Behaviour: Birds Category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024.
Keith watched as a female satin bowerbird inspected the male’s bower, which was tucked away in bushes on the University of Wollongong’s campus. To attract females, the males build bowers out of twigs, which they then decorate, usually with blue-coloured natural materials. But in this case, the male used plastic carton tops, drinking straws and clothes pegs – a reminder of just how pervasive plastic is now.
Bowerbirds aren’t the only species whose mating rituals are showing signs of our influence upon their lives. Male lyrebirds put on rousing performances where they mimic the sounds of the forest to impress potential mates. Recently, worrying new sounds have entered their repertoires, including the most concerning of all – the sound of chainsaws. They are so good at mimicking, it can be hard to tell the difference.
Be sure to head to this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition to see Keith’s bowerbird image up close.
If all this has you intrigued to see more, why not visit our Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. You’ll get to see stunning images taken by the world’s most talented wildlife photographers and experience the world of our beaked buddies like never before.
