I have been waiting all Birdability Week to share these!
One of the great joys of birding is that birds absolutely do not care what we are hoping they will do. That is the whole spirit of our Birdability Week Offbeat Photo + Video Contest, and this year’s more than 150 entries made me laugh over and over again.
I love this contest because there is already plenty of space in the birding world for exquisite photography, rare birds, long lenses, perfect light and perfectly timed shots. We wanted to make some space for everything else too.
And WOW did you all understand the assignment.
Grand Prize Photo Winner
Our Grand Prize winner is Sujata Roy for “Speck-Of-Blue.”
Image description: Grand Prize, “Speck-Of-Blue”: Yellow sunflowers fill the frame, with a tiny blurry Indigo Bunting barely visible as a literal speck of blue in the upper left.Sujata went out into a Carolina summer hoping to photograph an Indigo Bunting among the sunflowers. There are indeed sunflowers. Lots and lots of beautiful sunflowers. And way over in the left corner there is, technically, an Indigo Bunting.
A speck of blue.
I am so beyond delighted by this photo because anyone who has ever tried to photograph a bird knows this exact experience. You know the bird was there. You saw the bird. Your camera, however, has chosen to document the general concept of where a bird might be. Here is the way our Celebrity Judge, Karl Mecham, @the.inept.birder describes the wonderful "autofocus fail" image of a sunflower field with one tiny Indigo Bunting tucked into the corner, and blurry as all get out in his Judging Video:
Photo Finalists
Our finalists gave us an absolutely wonderful mix of chaos, tenderness and bird behavior.
Image description: “Let’s Bite Mama”: Several young Green Herons crowd around an adult at the nest with their beaks wide open and biting. Sean Krepski shared “Let’s Bite Mama,” from a Green Heron nest he monitored for a month in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Every time a parent arrived to feed the nestlings, the chicks descended upon them with the enthusiasm of tiny dinosaurs who had apparently concluded that food came from somewhere inside Mom or Dad and the fastest way to solve that puzzle was simply to start biting.
Image description: “Get Out Big Bully”: An egret and a gull splash and flap at each other in the water during a dramatic confrontation.Debraj Das gave us “Get Out Big Bully,” which includes an egret, a Brown-headed Gull, a lot of splashing and enough wing-flapping drama to earn Debraj’s description of the scene as “Pondside WWE – Featherweight Championship.” I cannot improve on that.
Image description: “Half the eyes, twice the cute”: A one-eyed Carolina Wren perches on a black metal fence with green foliage behind her.And Breck Stenson introduced us to Bubbybird in “Half the eyes, twice the cute.” Bubbybird is a Carolina Wren who lost an eye somewhere along the way and then went right on being a Carolina Wren, including successfully raising four babies in Breck’s mailbox this summer. I love her very much.
Contest Committee Choices
Then there were the photos our contest committee simply could not let go by without giving them some extra love. We each chose a favorite!
Gary chose Cami Johnson’s “We Both Missed This Shot,” in which a territorial tern dives at Cami while pooping. There is a lot happening in this photograph, and every single part of it is funny when you take the title into account. Yep, out of focus bird and perfectly clear poop, lol.
Barbara chose Kristel Saxton’s “2 feet and a plop,” which may be one of the finest pieces of bird-related evidence ever submitted to us. A bird landed. A bird pooped. A bird departed. What remained was art.
Kara chose Karen Vallevand’s wonderful roadrunner courtship photo, featuring a male arriving with a lizard for his partner. Romance is alive and well, apparently, and sometimes romance is a lizard.
And my choice was Pat Rodgers’ “A Good Laugh.” Pat was trying to sneak up on a Great Crested Flycatcher and get a good angle. The bird looked over, cocked its head and appears, quite genuinely, to be laughing directly at Pat.
There was no universe in which I was not choosing that photo.
Honorable Mentions
We also have a whole collection of honorable mentions that I hope you spend some time with: a Red-winged Blackbird taking on a Sandhill Crane many times its size; an American Kestrel who perhaps should have finished taking care of business before takeoff; a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher seemingly launching itself straight into spring; a Wild Turkey attempting an extremely ambitious bird-feeder maneuver; and a Skylark with one of the most endearing faces I have ever seen.
Image description: “Self Defense” by Dr. S. S. Suresh - A Red-winged Blackbird attacks a much larger Sandhill Crane standing in tall green grass.
Image description: “Kestrel 4-29-2026”: Chantal Atkinson - An American Kestrel flies through the air with its wings spread as a long white dropping trails behind it.
Image description: “Spring Sprang Sprung”: Keegan Smith-Nichols - An out of focus Blue-gray Gnatcatcher appears to launch forward from a leafy branch against a bright spring background.
Image description: “Turkey in bird feeder”: Ion Lis - A Wild Turkey awkwardly balances on the edge of a backyard platform feeder with its wings spread.
Image description: “A Friendly Face!”: Talia Porter - A Skylark with one eye missing stands upright in grass, facing the camera with a curious expression.Video Contest
And our video winner is “Mothering,” submitted by Laura Cleveland, a close-up look at a mother House Sparrow feeding her baby at a backyard feeder. There is something so special about getting to watch baby birds arrive at feeders in the spring and summer, still figuring out the world and still very much expecting their parents to take care of them. In this video, Mom makes absolutely sure her baby gets fed, and we get to watch that small act of care happen right in front of us. It is funny and tender and ordinary in the very best way, and such a good reminder of how much bird behavior we can witness when we simply spend time watching the birds where we are.
Video description: Two House Sparrows perch side by side on the edge of a backyard bird feeder filled with seed. One is a young bird with a wide yellow gape. The adult female leans toward the baby and places food directly into its open beak. Behind them is a green backyard with several hanging bird feeders, trees, and a brick house. After feeding the baby, the two sparrows remain perched closely together at the feeder.As I look through all of these is, my main thought is about how much joy there can be in simply paying attention. You are very likely to find something funny or beautiful or ridiculous or tender that you would have missed if you had not been paying attention to the birds around you! #BirdWhereYouAre
I am so grateful to everyone who entered this year, and to Sujata, Sean, Debraj, Breck, Cami, Kristel, Karen, Pat, Dr. S. S. Suresh, Chantal, Keegan, Ion and Talia for letting us share these wonderful moments with the whole Birdability community.
I hope you are as joyfully delighted by these as I am.
And congratulations to Sujata Roy, our 2026 Offbeat Photo + Video Contest Grand Prize winner!
