The Magazine of The Sierra Club
Audubon and Lady Birds and Videos, Oh My
Check out this year’s Audubon Bird Photography contest victors
The 2021 Audubon Photography Awards Grand Prize photo, taken by Carolina Fraser, features the greater roadrunner.
Robin Ulery is the Amateur Award winner, thanks to this sandhill crane photo.
Tom Ingram won an honorable mention in the Amateur category for this shot of a peregrine falcon.
In capturing this northern harrier, Elizabeth Yicheng Shen clinched the new Female Bird Prize.
Patrick Coughlin won this year's Fisher Prize with help from this portrait of an Anna’s hummingbird.
Shirley Donald took the Plants for Birds Prize, thanks to this shot of a red-winged blackbird on a lily pad.
Karen Boyer Guyton got an honorable mention in the Plants for Birds category for capturing this Anna’s hummingbird with a cattail.
Steve Jessmore's northern cardinal won the Professional Award.
Steve Jessmore's shot of a red-tailed hawk also earned him an honorable mention in the Professional category.
Bill Bryant took the inaugural Video Award, thanks to this red-tailed hawk footage. (Video linked here.)
Brent Sizek got an honorable mention in the Video category, with help from this great gray owl. (Video linked here)
Eighteen-year-old Arav Karighattam won the Youth Award for this purple sandpiper. (As part of the prize, Karighattam gets to spend six days at the Hog Island Audubon Camp during the 2022 season.)
Sixteen-year-old Josiah Launstein won an honorable mention in the Youth category with this shot of a Canada goose.
Earlier this month, the National Audubon Society crowned the winning photographs and videos of the 2021 Audubon Photography Awards, with eight prizes across five divisions. Over the past decade-plus, the contest has become something of a holy grail for bird-loving shutterbugs. Now in the competition's 12th year, winning entries and honorable mentions emerged from 2,416 entrants from all 50 states plus 10 Canadian provinces and territories.
For the first time, the competition awarded the Female Bird Prize, as well as the Video Prize. Audubon introduced the former to draw attention to female birds—which, being more understated in appearance than their male counterparts, are often overlooked and underappreciated in both bird photography and conservation endeavors. The new Video category aims to illuminate the unique and fascinating ways in which birds behave and interact with their environments. This year’s contest also featured prizes in recently introduced categories, such as the Plants for Birds Prize. This prize highlights the importance of native plants, which provide habitat for both birds and the insects that sustain them—and sheds light on Audubon’s Plants for Birds program, which serves to help participants find bird-friendly native plants and, effectively, to help adapt outdoor spaces to a warming climate. The 2021 Awards also included the Fisher Prize, which rewards unorthodox approaches to avian photography. Winning photos and videos will be featured in the Summer 2021 issue of Audubon magazine, and top photos and honorable mentions will be showcased in a virtual Audubon Photography Awards exhibit.
During a year when climate catastrophes have been making more headlines than ever before, Audubon’s celebration of avian majesty has a two-fold objective. Yes, these photos and videos are meant to enchant people with the beauty of birds—but they’re also intended to draw attention to the fact that, according to Audubon’s 2019 climate science report, a full two-thirds of North American birds are threatened by extinction from climate change. And that count includes species featured in these winning photos. Learn more about how climate change will affect the birds in your backyard and communities by entering your zip code into Audubon's interactive Birds and Climate Visualizer.
And until then, please click through these award-winning sights and enjoy the stories behind them.