An Anna’s hummingbird, Amateur Honorable Mention, photographed on the Ardenwood Historic Farm in California #
Bibek Ghosh / 2020 Audubon Photography Awards

Alan Taylor has been a go-to visual explainer on our platform for years. He also led us to this contest in 2016. By the time of the 2019 contest we were linking directly from the source but here we give him credit for reminding us it is that time of the year again:

The winners of the the 11th annual Audubon Photography Awards competition were recently announced. Photographers entered images in four categories: professional, amateur, youth, and plants for birds. More than 6,000 images depicting birdlife from all 50 states and seven Canadian provinces and territories were judged. The National Audubon Society was again kind enough to share some of this year’s winners and runners-up with us below. You can also see all of the top 100 entries on the Audubon website.

The 2020 Audubon Photography Awards: Winners

This year’s top shots delight with dazzling colors and fresh perspectives.

Every spring, the judges of the Audubon Photography Awards gather at Audubon’s headquarters in Manhattan to review their favorite images and select the finalists. But as with much of life in 2020, this year’s awards had to be handled differently due to pandemic-related travel, work, and social-distancing restrictions. So, for our 11th annual awards, which saw more than 6,000 submissions, the judges assembled in an epic day-long Zoom meeting to winnow down the remaining pool to just the 10 winners and honorable mentions shown here.

As always, the task was simultaneously unenviable and inspiring. The thousands of submissions from nearly 1,800 entrants showed birdlife in all of its splendor. In total, photographers from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and 7 Canadian provinces entered images that captured the creativity, wonder, and beauty of species small and large, terrestrial and aquatic.

This year we also continue with two new awards introduced in 2019: The Fisher Prize, which recognizes an image that is as artistic as it is revealing, and the Plants for Birds category, which honors the top photographs illustrating the crucial relationship between native plants and birds.

Read the whole story here.