A Special Interest Group of BirdLife Australia Follow us! 
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Eastern Rosella. Photographer: Richard Smart
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Australian Owlet-nightjar. Photographer: Harry Charalambous
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Azure Kingfisher. Photographer: Harry Charalambous
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Yellow-billed Spoonbill. Photographer: Harry Charalambous
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Galah. Photographer: Pennie Marks
BLP Member Login
The next BirdLife Photography Biennial Conference (previously Digital Photography In The Bush) will be held in Fremantle, WA, on 21st & 22nd September 2019.
This Search facility will search all website content, uploaded documents, and images. Some content on this site is restricted to BLP members; visitors may not be able to access all the items found. The search options button on the All Photos page (on the Photo Gallery drop-down menu), and on individual gallery pages, provides more options for searching images only.
Latest Images
Little Pied Cormorant
Graham Gall
Viewed: 8
Pacific Black Duck
Stephen Garth
Viewed: 10
Curlew Sandpiper, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
Stephen Garth
Viewed: 8
Willie Wagtail
Graham Gall
Viewed: 8
Cape Barren Goose
Stephen Garth
Viewed: 10
Zebra Finch
Stephen Garth
Viewed: 9
Rainbow Bee-eater
Brett Roberts
Viewed: 9
Our first competition for this year, Best of 2018, has closed for entries and is now open for member voting; voting will close on Monday, 25th March 2019. As usual, you may vote for one or more of the competition levels; you do not need to have submitted an image to the competition to vote.
If you need help on how to vote, see the Photo Galleries-Competitions-Competition Voting page.
Please remember that this is not a popularity vote for your favourite bird, the rarest species or the most colourful bird. Your scoring (5 points for the best image, down to 1 point for your fifth choice) should reflect the following:
- Does the image meet the theme criteria?
- Does the image meet the key criteria for a quality image? (see 'Competition Voting' for more details).
In addition to the membership vote, each competition level is reviewed by an experienced/professional judge - our "Mystery Reviewer" - and those scores are added to the members' voting results for the end-of-year medal awards.
We have been trialling a larger image size in the Advanced level of this competition; entries for that level were required to be either 1800 pixels wide or 1800 pixels high. This has some implications for viewing the images. Our website uses what is known as "responsive design", and will scale images which are wider than your browser window to fit on-screen. This means that if your browser window is not wider than about 1850 pixels (allowing for page margins and scroll-bar), you will not see a full-size image which is 1800 pixels wide; it will be scaled to fit your page width. The screen/browser resolution data that we have available indicates that about 2/3 of our members are using screens with HD (1920 x 1080) or higher resolution, and will be able to see 1800 pixel wide images with no scaling.
If your browser window is wide enough to display the image at full size, there will be no scaling; this means that an image which is 1800 pixels high will need a browser window about 1950 pixels high to see the whole image which is 1800 pixels high (allowing for browser title/menu/address bars and task bar at bottom of screen). Very few of our members have screens with such high resolution; to see the whole of an 1800-high image they will need to reduce their browser window width - yes, it sounds counter-intuitive - to cause the image to be scaled until its height is reduced sufficiently to display in the browser window. For example, there is an image in the Advanced competition which is 1350 wide x 1800 high; on my desktop monitor (1680 x 1050 resolution), with a maximized browser window, I can see the image at full size, but I only see about half of the image height; I need to reduce my browser window width to about 750 pixels to see the complete image, which at that point has been scaled to about 50% of its full size. I would do this if I was assessing images for voting, so that I could see the overall composition; I would also view it full size to see image detail. Changing the browser window width will allow people with screens which cannot display an 1800 x 1800 image at full size to get the "best of both worlds" with the large image format.
World renowned bird photographer Glenn Bartley will be the keynote speaker at the Birdlife Photography Biennial Conference on 21st & 22nd September 2019, in Fremantle, WA.
Save those dates!
There's only a few days left to get your entries in for this competition!
Our first photo competition for this year is Best of 2018. As the name implies, we invite you to submit your best image(s) taken during 2018.
This competition is open to members for submission of entries until Monday 25th February 2019. The normal 2-year time limit for photos does not apply for this competition; images for this competition must have been taken during 2018 (ie. between 1st January 2018 and 31st December 2018). 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 another existing gallery. See the Photo Gallery - Competitions section for full details and rules of our competitions, and quick access to the current competition galleries.
For this competition, we are trialing a larger image size for the Advanced level. In that category, images may be up to 1800px wide and 1800px high; at least one of the image dimensions must be 1800px. The image filesize limit has also been increased, to 2560kB.
Best Photograph of the Year - Interchangeable Lens Camera
Regent Bowerbirds -Brian O'Leary
Best Photograph of the Year - Fixed Lens Camera
Australian Pelican - Rodger Scott
The winners of these Photographs of the Year will receive a BLP gold medal.
The BirdLife Photography Annual Award for 2018 - our most prestigious award - goes to Tim Van Leeuwen. This award is made to the member who excels against the following criteria:
- submits at least 24 high quality images to the image galleries on 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.
Tim’s contributions, against these criteria, were as follows:
- Submitted over 100 images to non-competition galleries. 17 of these appeared in the “Recent Picks” sidebar.
- Entered every competition during 2018, winning the Member’s Voting and Mystery Reviewer's award in one of these competitions for the year; many other competition entries received commended results.
- Established our social media sites on Instagram and Facebook, and continues to manage those sites.
Tim’s contribution to BirdLife Photography throughout 2018 was truly outstanding, and we thank him for his efforts. Congratulations Tim!
The award is presented as a multi-faceted crystal, with a frosted white-on-crystal BLP logo and laser inscription, in a velvet presentation case.
Gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded for results in each level of every competition held in 2018. These awards are based on the results from both Mystery Reviewers and Member Voting, and competition participation. The medals, in their display cases, are shown below.
Advanced Level
- Gold Medal - Wilson Lennard
- Silver Medal - Brian O'Leary
- Bronze Medal – Con Boekel
- Bronze Medal – Glenn Pure
Intermediate Level
- Gold Medal – Bill Harding
- Silver Medal – Doug Castle
- Bronze Medal – Hayley Alexander
Entry Level
- Gold Medal – Chris Young
- Silver Medal - Warren Bennett
- Bronze Medal – Jennifer Carr
Most Improved Photographer of the Year
There was no obvious candidate for this award in 2018, so it has not been awarded.
Recent Picks
Tasmanian Thornbill
Stephen Garth
Viewed: 13
Welcome Swallow
Shane Walker
Viewed: 35
Scrubtit
Warren Bennett
Viewed: 50
Northern Fantail
Gary King
Viewed: 21
Speckled Warbler
Patrick Kavanagh
Viewed: 63
Star Finch
Bill Harding
Viewed: 48
Chiming Wedgebill
Gary King
Viewed: 53
Channel-billed Cuckoo, Pied Currawong
Paul Thorogood
Viewed: 53
Long-toed Stint
William Betts
Viewed: 40
Glossy Ibis
Con Duyvestyn
Viewed: 47
CONTACT US
The easiest way to contact us is by emailing us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Our People page, in the About Us section, contains email links to each of the committee members.
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