24 Award-Winning Wildlife Photos Shared By The Artist Gallery

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “A family of lynxes takes shelter inside a tree trunk on a hot summer day in the Austrian Alps. The father, mother, and two cubs are asleep. Only one cub is awake and looking around.”

2nd Place Winner

Photo description: “Being a mother bear is hard work! She not only has to feed the cubs but has to also stay alert and proactively keep her cubs away from the slightest danger. And this bear did it with great calm and grace . So much so that this cub seems to be looking up at her saying ‘Thank you. You are my hero!’”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “In the Okavango Delta of the savage Botswana, the wild eye of the male lion through the carcass of the buffalo, as a result of an impressive hunt in the previous day! This is the wild nature where everything could happen with the perfect balance!”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “In the golden light of early morning, a Brown Bear in Alaska chases a salmon upstream. In late summer, bears are trying to eat as much as possible to build up fat for their long winter hibernation.”

3rd Place Winner

Photo description: “A young one-year-old male leopard in Botswana’s Moremi Game Reserve catches its reflection in the polished surface of a safari vehicle’s bumper. Bathing in the warm golden hour light, this yearling’s curiosity is framed in a rare, self-reflective moment.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “A southern caracara surveys its territory from the highest rock in the Falkland Islands.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “Never having played rugby (or American football), we have often wondered what it would be like to be the recipients of a hard tackle. These egrets at Solio Game Reserve almost learnt that feeling when 5 muscular rhinos charged in their direction, but chose to fly out just in time!”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “A dramatic and visceral aerial grapple between a Common Buzzard and a Western Marsh Harrier over the wetlands of the Amvrakikos Gulf in winter. Captured during hours of patient waiting from a hidden ground-level position, this split-second action highlights the raw intensity of apex predators.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “Two sub-adult Bengal tigers engage in a powerful mid-air skirmish in Tadoba, India. This display of agility and strength is a vital part of their development, as they hone the combat skills necessary to one day rule the jungle.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “A female bear foraged peacefully along the shoreline until a determined male arrived, leading to a prolonged mating encounter as the rising tide surrounded them - a dramatic and rarely witnessed moment of wild bear behaviour. Lake Clarke, Alaska.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “After spending a long time resting in the dense underbrush, this Bengal tiger in Kanha National Park, India, finally emerged - just as a patrolling elephant passed nearby. As if following a script, the tiger stepped confidently onto the very path I had been watching, offering a rare and unobstructed view.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “As I was watching this past year's Great Horned Owl juveniles make their first flights out of the nest, one flew down by the pond to get a drink. Through a window in the brush and trees I was able to use my 135 1.8 to capture the fiery sunset colors and the Owlet hidden in the thicket.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “A Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) hunting at low altitude over the wetlands of Chalastra, in the Axios Delta. The late afternoon light catches the owl mid-flight, emphasizing the immense wingspan and the perfect symmetry of its glide.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “As snow drifts through the darkness, a fox pauses in a fleeting moment of calm amid the winter night.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “The largest known animal to ever live on the planet, a blue whale, rises for a breath off the coast of Mexico. We spotted the spout of this whale over a mile away and immediately knew what species it was. It sounded like a rocket taking off in the distance.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “In late spring, the waters around Baja California Sur are teeming with mobulas. Known as “fevers”, these groups of rays are often gathered by the thousands. This is a rare glimpse of mobulas in the clear blue. This species typically prefers murky plankton-rich waters.”

Honorable Mention

Photo Description: “A black-necked cormorant returns to its colony after fishing at sea. In Argentine Patagonia.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “Captured in Kushiro with a 1/4-second exposure, the whooper swans’ wingbeats dissolved into luminous arcs of motion. The reflected blue of the mountainside transformed their flight into an abstract dance—rhythmic, layered, and quietly breathtaking.”

Honorable Mention

Photo description: “I was struck by the wing patterns of this juvenile Black Stork, as it rested its head in between bouts of preening. I wanted to fill the frame with those patterns to concentrate the eye.”

1st Place Winner

Photo description: “A tender moment between a grey whale calf and its mother in their birthing lagoons of Mexico. Mothers and calves form a close bond in these lagoons, which will serve them well on their long
journey back north to their Alaska feeding grounds.”