The theme for our third competition for 2020 is Head and Bill.  The focus is on the head and bill but an appropriate amount of neck and upper body (minimum please) as a base for the head and bill is acceptable.  The challenge is to obtain sharpness and clarity with the identifiable features of the head and bill including those features that identify the species. Please remember that all competition entries must have relevant comments, including why you have chosen the image for the competition (there is a link to further guidance on the Submit Photos page).

This competition is open for submission of entries until Monday 10^th August 2020.  Images must have been taken during the last four years (that is, on or after 15^th June 2016). Up to four of your best images may be submitted. Images submitted to previous competitions, or to the New Images gallery, may be submitted to this competition; if you choose to do this, you must resubmit the image to the competition gallery; images cannot be moved from an existing gallery. There are now maximum and minimum size requirements for all levels of competition. Images may be up to 1800 pixels wide and/or high, and must have at least one dimension meeting the minimum size requirement for the competition level; for the Advanced competition, the minimum size is 1800 pixels, for the Intermediate and Entry Level competitions the minimum size is 1400 pixels.

Our Mystery Reviewers have completed their assessments of the images in each level of the Finches and Chats competition; their ratings are as follows:

Advanced Level – Finches and Chats

• Winner (equal): Star Finch, by Bill Harding (Image ID 39769)
• Winner (equal): Zebra Finch, by Stephen Garth (Image ID 39852)
• Highly Commended: Doubled-barred Finch, by Sandy Castle (Image ID 39815)
• Commended: White-fronted Chat, by Scott Rolph (Image ID 40490)
• Commended: White-fronted Chat, by Gary King (Image ID 39975)
• Commended: Chestnut-breasted Mannikin, by Bill Harding (Image ID 39736)
• Commended: Red-browed Firetail, by John Cooper (Image ID 39899)
• Commended: Diamond Firetail, by John Cooper (Image ID 39894)
• Commended: Diamond Firetail, by Brian O’Leary (Image ID 39846)
• Special Mention: Gouldian Finch, Masked Finch, by Gary King (Image ID 39892)
• Special Mention: Chestnut-breasted Mannikin, by Terence Alexander (Image ID 40543)
• Special Mention: Orange Chat, by Wilson Lennard (Image ID 40355)
• Special Mention: Red-eared Firetail, by Stephen Garth (Image ID 40149)

Intermediate Level – Finches and Chats

• Winner: Orange Chat, by Linda Unwin  (Image ID 40386)
• Commended: Red-browed Finch, by Paul Jensen (Image ID 40169)
• Commended: White-fronted Chat, by Les George (Image ID 39985)
• Commended: Crimson Chat, by Les George (Image ID 39986)
• Commended: Double-barred Finch, by Allan Rose (Image ID 40243)
• Commended: Double-barred Finch, by Bruce McNaughton (Image ID 40457)
• Commended: Zebra Finch, by Woody Woodhouse (Image No. 40552)
• Commended: Crimson Chat, by Linda Unwin (Image ID 40480)
• Commended: Beautiful Firetail, by Chris Young (Image ID 40482)

Entry Level – Finches and Chats

• Winner - Double-barred Finch, by Russell Dann (mage ID 40366)
• Highly Commended - Zebra Finch, by Diana Womersley (Image ID 40088)
• Commended - Chestnut-breasted Mannikin, by Graham Gall (Image ID 39771)
• Commended - European Goldfinch, by Graham Gall (Image ID 39694)
• Commended - Red-browed Finch, by Jenny Donald (Image ID 40530)
• Commended - Zebra Finch, by Diana Womersley (Image ID 40068)
• Special Mention - White Fronted Chat, by Donna Evans (Image ID 40160
• Special Mention - White Fronted Chat, by Donna Evans (Image ID 40161)

The Mystery Reviewer Critiques are available in the Resources - Mystery Reviewer Critiques page.  Critiques published within the last two years are only visible to our members; you must be logged in to the site to see them.

Member voting for the Finches and Chats competition, which closed for entries on ^18th May and for voting on 8^th June, has been analysed and the results for the top five images in each category are listed here.  This competition received good support from the membership, with 209 images entered across the 3 competition levels by 97 photographers.  The Winner is the image which received the most votes; and we also show the next four highest placed images, rating them as Highly Commended if they received at least 90% of the votes for the winning image, and Commended for scores less than that.

There were 29 species eligible for entry to this competition, and all but six of those were represented in the entries. Those missing were Pale-headed Munia (a vagrant, which we have no images of), Java Sparrow, Black-throated Finch, Blue-faced Parrot-Finch, Gibberbird, and - somewhat surprisingly - European Greenfinch.

Advanced Level – Finches and Chats

This category attracted 71 entries, from 22 photographers. 39 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Diamond Firetail, by John Cooper (Image ID 39894)
• Commended - Diamond Firetail, by Brian O'Leary (Image ID 39846)
• Commended - Orange Chat, by Wilson Lennard (Image ID 40355)
• Commended - Crimson Chat, by Steve Mantle (Image ID 40507)
• Commended - Crimson Chat, by Scott Rolph (Image ID 40469)

Intermediate Level – Finches and Chats

This category attracted 84 entries, from 36 photographers. 45 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Orange Chat, by Linda Unwin (Image ID 40386)
• Highly Commended - Double-barred Finch, by Gregory Griffiths (Image ID 39718)
• Commended - Crimson Chat, by Les George (Image ID 39986)
• Commended - Beautiful Firetail, by Chris Young (Image ID 40482)
• Commended - Yellow Chat, by Chris Young (Image ID 40221)

Entry Level – Finches and Chats

This category attracted 54 entries, from 20 photographers. 39 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Double-barred Finch, by Russell Dann (Image ID 40366)
• Commended - Chestnut-breasted Mannikin, by Graham Gall (Image ID 39771)
• Commended - Gouldian Finch, by Lynette English (Image ID 40487)
• Commended - Zebra Finch, by Diana Womersley (Image ID 40068)
• Commended - Zebra Finch, by Diana Womersley (Image ID 40088)

Congratulations to all these photographers for their quality images.

It’s that time of the year again, when the committee reviews the achievements of our members during the past year and announces our 2019 award winners.

On behalf of the BirdLife Photography committee it gives me great pleasure to firstly announce our most prestigious award, the BirdLife Photography Annual Award.

This award is at the discretion of the committee and is presented to a BLP member who has excelled in the following three criteria:

• at least 24 high quality images submitted to the image galleries through the website during the calendar year,
• participates in at least 50% of the Current Competitions organised during the calendar year,
• actively contributes to at least one of a range of BirdLife Photography activities, events, project or resources that benefit our members (as determined by the Committee).

The 2019 BirdLife Photography Annual Award is presented to Con Boekel.

Con contributed 120 images (including several to the Science & Conservation gallery), entered all 4 competitions, and contributed to BLP as an image moderator and Mystery Reviewer; Con won the 2019 Tom Oliver Award with his photo essay “Bird photography for What?”

The award consists of a quality sliced crystal cylinder with a frosted white-on-crystal BLP logo and laser inscription, in a velvet presentation case.

Photo Competition Awards

Awards are presented to members who have achieved the top three scores in each competition level. Points are accrued from member votes and Mystery Reviewer judging across the year, for all four competitions. For details, see the About Us - BLP Awards page.

Advanced Level Competition

   Gold medal  – awarded to Bill Harding
   Silver medal  – awarded to Tim Van Leeuwen
   Bronze medal – awarded to Doug Castle
   Bronze medal  – awarded to Stephen Garth

Intermediate Level Competition

   Gold medal  – awarded to Con Duyvestyn
   Silver medal  – awarded to Gary King
   Bronze medal – awarded to Linda Joseph

Entry Level Competition

   Gold medal  – awarded to Jennifer Carr
   Silver medal  – awarded to Mary Wheeler
   Bronze medal – awarded to Graham Gall

Graham Cam,
President, BirdLife Photography

Best Photograph of the Year - Interchangeable Lens Camera

Australasian Gannet - Con Duyvestyn (Image ID 36862)

Best Photograph of the Year - Non-interchangeable Lens Camera

Nankeen Kestrel - Anna Browne (Image ID 33418)

The winners of these Photographs of the Year received a BirdLife Photography gold medal.

We have changed the size requirements for images which our members may submit to our galleries.  Since the start of 2019, the Advanced Level competition galleries have had a maximum image size of 1800 pixels for either width or height, together with a requirement that at least one of these dimensions meets this same size.  These requirements will remain unchanged.  All other galleries, except the Slides gallery and the Landscapes/Habitat/KBAs gallery, will now accept images up to 1800 pixels wide or high; there is also a minimum size requirement of at least 1400 pixels in one of these dimension - which means that all images must be at least 1400 pixels in either width or height.  We would encourage all members to submit images which meet the maximum size allowable for at least one dimension.  The maximum file size will be 2500 kB (approx. 2.5 MB).  The Landscapes/Habitat/KBAs gallery has a minimum width of 1680 pixels, to meet the preferred size (1680 x 995) for use on BirdLife Australia's website.  Images submitted to the Slides gallery must now be exactly 1400 x 450 pixels, with a maximum file size of 1000 kB (approx. 1 MB); the small variation previously allowed has been removed.

The Submit Photo page will not allow you to upload an image which does not meet these new requirements.  When you select a gallery on the Submit Photo page the limits are displayed together with the general information for the gallery, as in this example:

Over the years, we've published a number of educational/tutorial articles in our bi-monthly Newsletter.  These are now available in Resources - Our Articles.  That page provides access to articles in four categories:

• Photography Techniques and Processes
• Image Processing
• Articles about Equipment
• In-depth Technical Articles

Articles in this section which are less than 24 months old are only accessible to our members, who must log-in to access them.

In the past week or so (early April, 2018), we've had several members contact us to report that they have been unable to upload images to our galleries; the upload would hang, sometimes reporting a timeout error, sometimes with no error message.  It appears that a recent update to the Safari web browser - the default for Apple systems - is the cause of this behaviour.  Our advice to Safari users who experience this problem is to change to an alternative web browser; we recommend either Chrome or Firefox.