Bird Photographer of the Year 2023 Winners

With over 23,000 images entered into the competition this year, Bird Photographer of the Year is pleased to present our winners. Celebrating bird life from around the world, these images comprise some of the most incredible bird photos in the world taken by talented photographers, whilst also raising vital funds for our partner charity Birds on the Brink.

Taking the title of Bird Photographer of the Year, our Overall Winner is ‘Grab the Bull by the Horns’ by Jack Zhi. It features a female falcon attacking a brown pelican with great speed and agility. Zhi wins the top prize of £5,000 and the prestigious title. His image also won Gold Award in the Bird Behaviour category.

Young Bird Photographer of the Year

Our Young Bird Photographer of the Year is 17-year-old Anton Trexler with his image ‘Blue Hour and Red Moon’. Trexler wins £300 in vouchers for camera equipment.

Best Portfolio - Winner

Sponsored by Olympus UK

Our congratulations go to Rachel Bigsby from the UK, who wins the Best Portfolio award this year. Bigsby’s’ photographs demonstrate an incredible ability to capture the beauty, resilience, and fragility of the lives of birds who are at home in the air, on land, and at sea.

Video Award - Winner

Our congratulations go to Liron Gertsman, who wins Gold in the Video Award. This award looks for a strong sequence of clips that create a powerful story.

Our thanks to f-Stop Gear for sponsoring our main competition categories.

Best Portrait

An image that best captures the character of the subject bird and its distinctive features. We look for images that include lots of detail, captured in a classic pose or showing the animal’s features.

Gold - Nicolas Reusens, Spain

Silver - Thomas Vijayan, Canada

Bronze - Jake Levin, United States

Highly Commended

Birds in the Environment

This category focuses on photos that best demonstrate the relationship between a bird and its habitat.

Gold - Mateusz Piesiak, Poland

Silver - Clément Cornec, France

Bronze - Stefan Gerrits, Netherlands

Highly Commended

Bird Behaviour

This category celebrates images that best depict a behaviour of a bird. This might be the lekking display of a black grouse, the courtship of a great crested grebe, or a singing robin.

Gold - Jack Zhi, United States

Silver - Henley Spiers, United Kingdom

Bronze - Qiuqing Mu, China

Highly Commended

Birds in Flight

Celebrating avian mastery of the sky, this category focuses on birds in flight.

Gold - Rafael Armada, Spain

Silver - Paul Mckenzie, Ireland

Bronze - Richard Sanchez, Cuba

Highly Commended

Black and White

B&W can introduce simplicity and drama into images. This category celebrates the effective use of the monochromatic style.

Gold - Jason Moore, Australia

Silver - Yaron Schmid, Israel

Bronze - Cheng Kang, Australia

Highly Commended

Urban Birds

In an increasingly urban world, many birds are forced to live on the doorsteps of humans. This category explores the world of urban bird photography.

Gold - Arto Leppänen, Finland

Silver - Xiaoke Wang, China

Bronze - Julian Fernandez Quilez, Spain

Highly Commended

Comedy Bird Photo

This category encourages creativity in all its forms. Both in-camera techniques (such as multiple exposures) and post production techniques are permitted. Any digital manipulation is permitted, as long as the foundation of the final piece is an original photo. Composites, cloning, and any other effects are allowed.

Gold - Antonio Aguti, Italy

Silver - Levi Fitze, Switzerland

Bronze - Ann Gillis, United States

Highly Commended

Conservation (Single Image)

This category looks for strong conservation stories shown in one image.

Gold - Ewan Heath-Flynn, United Kingdom

Silver - Michael Eastwell, United Kingdom

Bronze - Luca Giordano, Italy

Highly Commended

Conservation Award

This category looks at images that tell a story of conservation efforts or the struggle of a particular species.

Winner - Ripan Biswas

‘Birds in Peril’

Situated in the Central Asian Flyway, Murshidabad, a small district of West Bengal, India, is an important place for migratory birds. The Ganges river flows through Murshidabad, and there are numerous lakes and wetlands, making this area a favourite spot for migratory and resident birds.

Bird numbers increase dramatically during the migratory season, which starts around November and lasts until April. This is also the time when people turn to poaching, by trapping birds in gill nets hung over lakes. The poachers then sell the birds at the local market as a seasonal delicacy, though it is totally illegal to catch or sell wild birds in India.

One non-governmental organisation, the Human & Environmental Alliance League (HEAL), is fighting this illegal practice. Their volunteers actively monitor lakes during migratory season and cut down the gill nets. They also help the forest department catch and detain the poachers. During the migratory season of 2023, I worked with HEAL as a volunteer and documented the whole process.

15-17 years

This category celebrates the photography of those aged between 15 and 17 years old.

Gold - Anton Trexler, Germany

Silver - Edwin Liu, Canada

Bronze - Josiah Launstein, Canada

Highly Commended

12-14 years

Celebrating the photography of those aged between 12 and 14 years old.

Gold - Harry Sedin, Sweden

Silver - Andrés Luis Domínguez Blanco, Spain

Bronze - Achintya Murthy, India

11 and under

Celebrating the photography of those aged 11 years old or younger.

Gold - Arko Saha, India

Silver - Zeyu Zhai, China

Bronze - Krzyś Stachera, Poland

Collection 8 is available now

Each year, we produce a high quality “coffee-table” book featuring the best images from the competition. This year is no different, with almost 300 images featured in this hardback collection.

The book features all the awarded and commended images, and is a great place to draw inspiration from for your next shoot.

Order your copy from the Bird POTY website.