Every year, photographers submit thousands of images to Audubon's Annual Photography Awards, and every year our panel of expert judges must whittle the contenders down to just four that represent the best of the best. There are many more worthy images, however, that capture birds in breathtaking scenes and fascinating behaviors, and so we've compiled 100 of those in the following photo gallery.
Go ahead and click through—we know you will be as taken with the variety of birdlife and the ingenuity of bird photographers as we were. And if you're inspired to pick up a camera and pursue avian subjects of your own, browse our guide to bird photography, where we've collected advice from experts, and tips on the best gear for getting started.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Ann Pacheco
Species: Atlantic Puffin
Location: Grimsey Island, Iceland
Story Behind the Shot: The cliffs of Grimsey Island, 40 kilometers off the north coast of Iceland, house a large colony of puffins, each with a chick tucked into a burrow. Lying at the top of the cliff, Pacheco waited to capture the delivery of food to the chicks. When she anticipated the puffin’s head turn to be parallel to her camera’s sensor, she clicked. Unlike most of the chicks, which scarfed down meals of small fish, this one had a Medusa-like beakful of eels.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Mick Thompson
Species: Gambel’s Quail
Location: Green Valley, AZ
Story Behind the Shot: By placing old saguaro cactus ribs out as a possible perch and tucking suet into nooks and crevices, Thompson successfully attracted this male Gambel’s Quail and then photographed him from behind a blind. Thompson loves the lines and lighting in this image—and in particular, that the quail looks as though it is about to be shot out of the ribs like a cannon.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Kirk Benson
Species: American Avocet
Location: San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, Irvine, CA
Story Behind the Shot: The American Avocet feeds by walking through shallow ponds and sweeping its long bill from side to side to find its prey by touch. On this occasion, the pond was deep enough that the avocet’s whole head would submerge with each swipe—the reason there’s water flowing off of its neck in this image. In order to get this eye-level perspective Benson lay flat on his stomach and used a screw-in beanbag on the lens foot.
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Category: Professional
Photographer: Scott Dere
Species: Peregrine Falcon
Location: New York City, NY
Story Behind the Shot: Dere found a few birds bathing in a huge puddle that filled out parts of a parking lot in the Bronx. When a Peregrine Falcon came along, it scared all of the other birds away and claimed the bath for itself. Dere inched his car forward just enough to get a head-on photo. Surprisingly, the falcon wasn’t afraid, so he crept a few feet closer and began shooting from inside the car. The falcon soon lost interest in Dere and continued to do its own thing.
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Category: Professional
Photographer: Aaron Baggenstos
Species: Bald Eagle
Location: Skagit Valley, WA
Story Behind the Shot: Every year thousands of Bald Eagles gather along rivers in the Pacific Northwest in search of their favorite food, wild salmon that have swum upstream to spawn. When these two birds locked talons in a battle over one such fish Baggenstos was there to capture the action. To overcome the cloudy conditions he used a Nikon D4S camera body at ISO 3200, and he froze the moment by locking in his shutter speed at 1/2000. Lastly he shot to the right of the histogram to optimize results in post-processing, a technique he recommends for anyone photographing action in low light.
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Category: Professional
Photographer: Sue Dougherty
Species: Common Raven
Location: Yellowstone National Park
Story Behind the Shot: On a Yellowstone trip with her photo-enthusiast friends, Dougherty spotted a raven as she got out of the car. The bird cawed and strutted. Dougherty says she must have looked “ravenesque” to him because he fluffed up at her from only a few feet away. Capturing interactions such as this, she says, made her realize that people share the Earth with many other sentient beings worthy of respect and protection.
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Category: Professional
Photographer: Jefferson White
Species: Wren sp
Location: Worcester, MA
Story Behind the Shot: While enjoying an afternoon in his backyard, White noticed a head peeking out of one of the gourd birdhouses. It was a very hot, dry summer, and the little fellow seemed to need a break from the heat inside. The wren poked his head out, eyes shut tight, just enough to enjoy some fresh air.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Gary Robinette
Species: Golden-crowned Kinglet
Location: Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, VA
Story Behind the Shot: Photographing Golden-crowned Kinglets were on Robinette’s bucket list, and so when he heard the kinglets had been spotted near Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge he went the next day. Though he knew their calls and habitat, Robinette had no idea how fast the birds are. So after a few misses, he was thrilled when a male kinglet presented itself with a full-crown display on a bare branch with no obstructions.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Barbara Baird
Species: Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Location: Laguna Seca Ranch, near Edinberg, TX
Story Behind the Shot: To Baird, it's always a joyous moment when a Golden-fronted Woodpecker shows up. She finds the species to be especially photogenic, with its beautifully colored feathers accented with black and white, and so was pleased one winter day to capture this image at Laguna Seca Ranch.
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Category: Professional
Photographer: Alice Cahill
Species: Cedar Waxwing
Location: Cuesta Park, San Luis Obispo, CA
Story Behind the Shot: Each year, Cedar Waxwings visit the central coast of California for a few months during late fall and early winter. They’re regular visitors to Cuesta Park, and when a flock staged themselves high in nearby Sycamore trees, Cahill was ready. She watched as multiple waves of waxwings swooped in to feast on native Toyon berries, including the bird in this image, which appeared to be showing off his prize before gobbling it down.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Mark Hendricks
Species: Von Der Decken’s Hornbill
Location: Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
Story Behind the Shot: One evening, during a month-long wilderness adventure in East Africa, Hendricks and his wife found their neighbor to be a male Von Der Decken’s Hornbill. It hunted ants as they set up camp, performing the traditional hornbill “toss and catch” with its meal. In order to avoid disturbing the bird, Hendricks belly crawled toward it and spent about 10 minutes photographing the feast.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Ralph Gaines
Species: Anhinga
Location: North Augusta, SC
Story Behind the Shot: Anhingas are known to search for food underwater by using their long, sharp mandibles. After foraging for a while, they like to spend time with their wings spread in the sun, grooming and airing out their feathers—a moment Gaines captured in this image, which shows off the bird’s unique feather patterns and behavior.
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Category: Professional
Photographer: Sean Crane
Species: Nazca Booby
Location: Genovesa Island, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador
Story Behind the Shot: While on the Galápagos Islands, Crane photographed three species of boobies, including the Nazca Booby in this image. Most were sitting on eggs or with their newborn chicks, which he observed looked like little piles of cotton with beaks sticking out. Crane got low to the ground to isolate the fuzzy birds from the dark background. It’s amazing how unafraid Galapagos wildlife is of humans, he says: “Even this vulnerable little chick seemed to be okay with the large man down on the ground staring back at it.”
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Glenn Conlan
Species: Peregrine Falcon
Location: LA County Coastal Ocean Cliff, CA
Story Behind the Shot: After a few days of observing and waiting, Conlan caught two falcons in an act of love. He had prefocused on the female perched on the edge of a cliff. As she bent over, the male swooped in. Conlan pressed the shutter button for seven to eight seconds, capturing the mating sequence in full.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Andrew Lee
Species: Western Grebe
Location: Lake Hodges, Escondido, CA
Story Behind the Shot: On a chilly day in February, Lee visited a California lake as the sun barely rose above the horizon. The air was filled with the calls of the Western Grebes. After about 20 minutes, two grebes suddenly appeared, extended their elegant, long necks, and raced with each other across the water. Lee raised his camera and quickly fired a burst of five shots, capturing this display of dramatic, finely choreographed courtship.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Warren Hatch
Species: American Oystercatcher
Location: Lido Beach, NY
Story Behind the Shot: Hatch captured a tender moment between parent and child. After foraging in the surf, the adult American Oystercatcher in this image headed back to the nest with a small crab. One chick spied the meal before his two siblings and hurried over. You could almost sense the parent’s pride (and amusement), Hatch says, as the chick wrestled to break into the crab.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Kirsten Tucker
Species: Green Bee-eater
Location: Phetchaburi Province, Thailand
Story Behind the Shot: Tucker spent three days birding in Phetchaburi Province in central Thailand, where she spotted 150 species. When this Green Bee-eater briefly emerged from a tangle of branches along the roadside, she was struck by the elegance of the bird’s lines and how its plumage perfectly reflected its environment—the blue of sky, brown of branch, and green of leaves.
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Category: Professional
Photographer: Vince Streano
Species: Rufous Hummingbird
Location: Anacortes, WA
Story Behind the Shot: Streano and his family installed a hummingbird feeder about 20 years ago. At first, only Rufous Hummingbirds were attracted to his home, but over the years, more species took notice. Now with eight feeders, the Streanos have 50 to 100 birds on their patio every summer. Photographing them proved to be extremely tricky, so Streano watches the birds for hours, learning their habits and flying patterns. He takes advantage of the high-noon sun and his camera’s ability to shoot at a 4,000th of a second to stop those rapid wing flaps.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Morris Finkelstein
Species: Tree Swallow
Location: Allen's Meadows, Wilton, CT
Story Behind the Shot: Finkelstein set out in search of a rare warbler with some fellow birders. But when he saw male Tree Swallows posturing on a post close to a nest box, he was in the ideal spot to photograph the brief interaction. He never tracked down the warbler, but he felt fortunate to capture this display of avian territorial behavior.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Therese Scheller
Species: Brown Creeper
Location: Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, Carver, MN
Story Behind the Shot: Scheller and her husband visited the Rapids Lake Unit of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in search of Golden-crowned Kinglets. In the flood plains of the Minnesota River, they could hear off in the distance the tapping and trilling of Red-bellied Woodpeckers echoing off the leafless trees, along with the chirp of a cardinal and the beep of nuthatches. When looking through the sea of trees, Scheller spotted this Brown Creeper, at one with the landscape, busily working the trunks.
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Category: Youth
Photographer: Ashleigh Scully
Species: Yellow-billed Oxpecker
Location: Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania
Story Behind the Shot: Scully was on a photo safari in Tanzania when a herd of Cape Buffalo blocked the road. She noticed these Yellow-billed Oxpeckers along for the ride and steadied her lens on a beanbag to frame a group of them. In this image, the bird on the far right has just scooped a beakful of blood from an open wound, a behavior that surprised Scully. She particularly likes the expressions on the birds’ faces, the clean background, and the fourth bird, just out of focus, “that seems to be wondering why it wasn’t invited to the party.”
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Janine Schutt
Species: Red-winged and Yellow-headed Blackbird
Location: Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, WA
Story Behind the Shot: As she waited one early spring evening for migrating Sandhill Cranes, just outside the southern block of the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, Schutt saw a flock of what she thought were Starlings feeding on corn. She ignored them, until they flew closer and she noticed Yellow-headed Blackbirds. So she snapped several shots. When Schutt reviewed the images later, she noticed numerous Red-winged Blackbirds as well. The two species are usually at odds and so Schutt felt it was a real treat to see the two getting along in this mixed flock, seemingly relying on one another for food and safety.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Brad Lewis
Species: Brown Pelican
Location: Elkhorn Slough State Marine Reserve, Moss Landing, CA
Story Behind the Shot: Lewis went to Elkhorn Slough on a wet and foggy morning with low visibility. He sat in a small boat and waited for the sun and the arrival of Brown Pelicans. Due to the movement of the boat, he kept his shutter speed at 1/1600, lowered his aperture to f/5.6, and raised his ISO to 2500. The resulting image captured a unique coloring of greys, browns, and oranges in this pelican in flight.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Joe Galkowski
Species: Brandt’s Cormorant
Location: Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, Carmel, CA
Story Behind the Shot: Galkowski was dismayed to learn the hard way that adults can get chicken pox. Bored at home, he went somewhere he couldn’t infect anyone else—near the edge of a cliff in a nature preserve. He spent the rest of the day watching courting Brandt’s Cormorants. He adjusted the exposure to bring out the detail of this bird’s black feathers, which nicely contrast its stunning blue eyes and throat pouch.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Brian Kushner
Species: Grackle sp
Location: Mariner Point Park, Joppa, MD
Story Behind the Shot: Mariner Point Park, a small park in Maryland, attracts a great variety of birds in the winter. Kushner was standing and looking around one day when this grackle landed on a nearby tree. It stared directly at him as he took the shot.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Danai Sriprasert
Species: Wood Duck
Location: York, ME
Story Behind the Shot: On a freezing cold day, Sriprasert went to visit the ducks that live on Abbott Pond in the southern tip of Maine. One Wood Duck stood out from among a hundred Mallards, unfazed by either his neighbors or the photographer. Because of the bitter cold Sriprasert was only able to shoot for about five minutes, but that’s all it took to get this shot.
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Category: Youth
Photographer: Patrick Maurice
Species: Dunlin
Location: Bunche Beach Preserve, Fort Myers, FL
Story Behind the Shot: For five hours, Maurice army-crawled his way across the sand, challenging himself to take better shorebird photos. He started the morning by photographing Little Blue Herons and Reddish Egrets, then moved on to Western Sandpipers and Sanderlings, and finally crawled into the surf to photograph a small flock of Marbled Godwits feeding with Red Knots and Dunlins. Because he laid still and moved very slowly, the sandpipers, including this Dunlin, walked right up to him.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Lorraine Minns
Species: Wood Stork
Location: Wakodahatchee Wetlands, Delray Beach, FL
Story Behind the Shot: The boardwalk meandering through Wakodahatchee Wetlands, created by a Florida water utilities department, attracts an abundance of wildlife, including over 150 species of birds. On the day she took this image, Minn captured a Wood Stork taking a bath—spraying water everywhere as it stood up and shook itself off. The species, North America’s only native stork, can be found breeding there every winter and spring.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Ly Dang
Species: Osprey
Location: San Diego, CA
Story Behind the Shot: Dang staked out this Osprey’s nest on a typical San Diego “May grey” day, near the San Diego River Estuary, hoping to catch the female in a teaching moment with her chicks. He waited for more than an hour before he finally saw an Osprey returning from the direction of the river. She carried seaweed between her talons—a meal that seemed to catch the chicks by surprise. Photo: Ly Dang
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Category: Professional
Photographer: Steve Mattheis
Species: Great Gray Owl
Location: Grand Teton National Park, WY
Story Behind the Shot: Mattheis found this Great Gray Owl fledgling on its first day out of the nest. It decided to climb back to safety on a vertical tree, but after only a few feet, the young owl paused in exhaustion. It wrapped its wings around the tree trunk as if it was hanging on for dear life. Eventually, the bird climbed another few feet to the nearest branch and rested for quite some time before jumping off, clumsily flapping its wings as it fell to the ground.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Chris Schlaf
Species: Wood Duck
Location: Washington, MI
Story Behind the Shot: Schlaf was photographing a Wood Duck floating on a log when a Painted Turtle arrived to sunbathe. He focused on getting both of the animals together with their reflections when he noticed that the duck was getting antsy. Schlaf snapped this image just as she took off and the turtle ducked its head for cover.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Artur Stankiewicz
Species: European Bee-eater
Location: Bratsigovo, Bulgaria
Story Behind the Shot: Stankiewicz spent three days in a hide above a European Bee-eater colony, patiently observing and photographing. Despite it being late June, weather refused to cooperate; intermittent showers and clouds presented a challenge in capturing dynamic photos of birds in flight. Eventually, Stankiewicz noticed that a few individuals regularly took off from a thin perch, and that became his target. He captured this shot of a bee-eater, wings colorfully spread, during a brief shimmer of sunlight.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Ann Pacheco
Species: Northern Pintail
Location: Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, Socorro County, NM
Story Behind the Shot: After scouting the refuge for ducks, Pacheco homed in on an open-water marsh with late autumn colors, winds blowing from the north, and sunlight that had broken through the clouds. Her challenge was to capture the unique wing and body position the Northern Pintail displays in its descent. She tracked the bird’s looped and long, slow, drooped-winged approach, and this image shows its elegant posture, long neck, namesake pin tail, and angled-back wings. In the final seconds before impact, its triangular feet act as a brake.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Frank Abbott
Species: Brown Pelican
Location: Sanibel Island, FL
Story Behind the Shot: Abbott’s favorite subject is the Brown Pelican, for its triumph over DDT, its elegant flight, its incredible dives, its graceful swimming, and not least of all, its accessibility. For this image, Abbott maneuvered his wheelchair onto a finger pier. He lined up with the bird with just inches to spare between his wheels and the edge of the pier. For him, the resulting image, of a mature pelican in mating plumage captured at the apex of a stretch, was worth the risk.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Greg Gard
Species: American Oystercatcher
Location: Lido Beach, Nassau County, NY
Story Behind the Shot: While lying low and photographing shorebirds during high tide, Gard noticed an adult and a juvenile American Oystercatcher approaching the water pool. He expected both birds to take a bath, but to his surprise, the adult bird stopped at the edge of the water, looked at him, and started to drink. With slow movements, Gard pointed his lens at the bird and started snapping.
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Category: Youth
Photographer: Carolina Fraser
Species: Mallard
Location: Dawson Creek Corporate Park, Portland, OR
Story Behind the Shot: One morning on a family vacation in Oregon, Fraser woke early to bird at the nearby Dawson Creek Corporate Park. She watched as this Mallard shook itself dry after swimming in a pond. Because the early-morning sun created fascinating light, Fraser leveraged it to capture a unique scene of an everyday bird.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Caroline Samson
Species: Osprey
Location: Nequasset Fish Ladder, Woolwich, ME
Story Behind the Shot: In May, alewives—a fish in the herring family—start to move upstream to spawn in freshwater lakes in Maine. Osprey find it an opportune time to snag an easy meal. Samson went to the the Nequasset Fish Ladder to watch as alewives made their way over the dam into Nequasset Lake. She had her camera ready when an Osprey’s head began to bob, because it takes just seconds for it to go from sitting in a tree to snagging a fish. As in this image, she also tries to get low to capture the motion of both the bird and the water.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Jim Akers
Species: Brown Pelican
Location: Santa Monica, CA
Story Behind the Shot: On a cold, windy morning on the beaches of Santa Monica, the waves were five to eight feet high and Brown Pelicans were out on a fishing expedition. The birds were playing “chicken” with the waves, and because it was preoccupied with gulls waiting to steal its catch, this one just barely escaped a crashing wall of water.
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Category: Amateur
Photographer: Chris Hartzell
Species: Ring-necked Duck
Location: Dead Horse State Park, Cottonwood, AZ
Story Behind the Shot: Hartzell enjoys the challenge of capturing creatures as they rise out of water, pushing surface tension to its max. This Ring-necked Duck at Dead Horse State Park spent just a few minutes diving next to him. Auto focus wouldn’t work so he had to focus manually—a near impossible task. But for the second time in more than 30 years of photography, Hartzell got the image, conveying the unique dynamics of water, that he was after.
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Category: Youth
Photographer: Zachary Webster
Species: Saddlebill Stork
Location: Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia
Story Behind the Shot: Webster spent a morning on a boat in the Lower Zambezi, looking for elephants crossing the river or frolicking in the mud along its banks. Instead, a Saddlebill Stork caught his eye as it frenetically searched for food, then stabbed its bill “like a lance” into the water. Webster got the water-level shot using a handheld lens, despite the challenges of keeping it steady as the boat rocked in the wind.