Member voting for the Reflections competition, which closed for entries on 2^nd November and for voting on 23^rd November, has been analysed and the results for the top five images (or more, in the case of a tie) in each category are listed here.  This competition received good support from the membership, with 249 images entered across the 3 competition levels by 119 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.

Advanced Level – Reflections

This category attracted 82 entries, from 27 photographers. 44 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Mulga Parrot, by Bill Harding (Image ID 42875)
• Commended - Marsh Sandpiper, by Terence Alexander (Image ID 43235)
• Commended - Sharp-tailed Sandpiper by Jason Moore (Image ID 42887)
• Commended - White-faced Heron, by Bill Harding (Image ID 42843)
• Commended - Brolga, by Con Duyvestyn (Image ID 42538)
• Commended - Great Egret, by Peter Bennet (Image ID 42597)

Intermediate Level – Reflections

This category attracted 103 entries, from 37 photographers. 49 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Red-necked Avocet, by Nathan Watson (Image ID 42804)
• Commended - Yellow-billed Spoonbill, by Nathan Watson (Image ID 43239)
• Commended - Australasian Grebe, by Murray Chambers (Image ID 42459)
• Commended - Whiskered Tern, by Ken Gosbell (Image ID 42750)
• Commended - Turquiose Parrot, by Linda Unwin (Image ID 43182)

Entry Level – Reflections

This category attracted 64 entries, from 24 photographers. 46 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Australian White Ibis, by Glenda Gore (Image ID 42685)
• Highly Commended - Whiskered Tern, by Glenda Gore (Image ID 42684)
• Highly Commended - Grey Shrike-thrush, by Donna Evans (Image ID 42846)
• Commended - Australian Pelican, by Graham Gall (Image ID 42754)
• Commended - Pink-eared Duck, by Alan Burdett (Image ID 42626)

Congratulations to all these photographers for their quality images.

Results of the 2020 BirdLife Australia Photography Awards have been released on the official competition site.

The competition received 6,500 entries this year, a big increase on the 4,100 in 2019, with lots of great photography on display including work
by a number of BLP members.  Special congratulations to our members who participated in this competition.

Our Zoom presentation, DSLR vs Mirrorless - the Future of Bird Photography, on Wednesday 28^th October was attended by 100 members - the maximum allowed.  For those tried to join but missed out, or were unable to attend at the time, we recorded the presentation, and it is now available for members to view, in Resources - Our Video Tutorials - DSLR vs Mirrorless (M).  This video is accessible only to our members; you must be logged in to view it.

We've recently become aware that a few members are not receiving email messages which we send from this website's mail-list facility, or from the BirdLife Australia e-News platform which we use.  The most likely reason that you are not receiving messages which we send is that you have, at some time, unsubscribed from the mail-list used for the message.  You can check which mail-lists you are subscribed to from the My Account page, under the Home menu tab when you are logged in the the site; you can select the mail-lists you want to receive and those you do not want to receive.  The current mail-list categories are Announcements & News, Photo Competitions, Newsletters, and Bird ID Challenges (currently not used, as we have suspended these).  There is also an All Members list, which is used for special purposes; you should not unsubscribe from that list.

If you use the unsubscribe facility in messages sent from the e-News platform - you can recognise these by the standard BirdLife Australia footer section - this will unsubscribe you from all messages sent from that site; this will include messages from BirdLife Australia and its branches sent using this platform  There is no facility for individuals to re-subscribe to the e-News platform.  

Our 2020 Members Survey showed that over 90% of responders would like us to develop a resource on our website for members to post information about recent field trips for the benefit of other members.  We have set up a page for this purpose, at Resources - Road Trip Reports; committee member Doug Castle has provided a couple of articles to get the ball rolling.  These reports are member-only access for two years; you must be logged in to see them.

If you would like to contribute to this resource, please send your report(s) to our website administrator, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  Don't worry about formatting; you can even send the report as an email message.  You can include a couple of photos if you wish.

Our 2020 Members Survey closed on Sunday 20^th September; we were pleased to receive responses from 350 members.  The winner of the random draw for responding with the first 14 days was Jacob Crisp, who will soon receive a $200 gift voucher from Ted's Cameras.

A document containing all the survey responses is available in the Our Articles - Science & Surveys page; this document is member-only access.  We are preparing a summary document to highlight the important findings from this survey,

BirdLife Photography members are once again well represented in this year's results for two prestigous international competitions.

Georgina Steytler won the Best Portfolio Award in the Bird Photographer of the Year 2020 competition.  Those who follow her on Instagram will have seen a number of photos she's taken recently with her new Olympus mirrorless camera.  Glenn Pure also did well in this competition, with two Commended images in the Best Portrait category and one in the Bird Behaviour category.

Seven members were in the shortlisted finalists of the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition.  They were Kim Wormald and Gary Meredith in the Animal Behaviour category, Keith Lightbody and Claire Greenwell in the Threatened Species category, Lea Scaddan and David Stowe in the Animal Portrait category, and Elizabeth Oxnam in the Botanical category,

Congratulations to all these photographers for their excellent work - well done!

Our 2021 Photo Competitions for BirdLife Photography members will have the following themes:

1. Best of 2020.  Up to four of your best bird shots taken during 2020.
2. Cranes, Storks, Crakes, Rails and Swamphens.  There should be something for everyone here. The following species are eligible: Brolga, Sarus Crane, Black-necked Stork, Lewin’s Rail, Buff-banded Rail, Lord Howe Woodhen, Chestnut Rail. Red-necked Crake, Red-legged Crake, Ruddy-breasted Crake, Baillon’s Crake, Australian Spotted Crake, Spotless Crake, White-browed Crake, Australasian Swamphen. Pale-vented Bush-hen, Watercock, White-breasted Waterhen, Eurasian Coot, Dusky Moorhen, Common Moorhen, Black-tailed Native-hen and Tasmanian Native-hen.
3. Birds in the Landscape.  The challenge here is to photograph the bird in the landscape. The bird needs to be big enough to ensure that it is clearly identifiable as does the habitat/landscape in which it lives. Comments need to address both the bird and the habitat/landscape. For example, what is the landscape/habitat and is it a typical or unusual location for the species. No birds on sticks with a clear background required here. Examples are fruit-doves in rainforest trees, finches feeding on grass seeds, chats in heathland, kingfishers overlooking and including the stream, water-birds in wetlands, estuaries or beaches etc.
4. Wrens.  The final competition for 2021 includes any species with “wren” as part of its common name (more than 30 species around Australia). It includes Emu-wrens, Fairy-wrens, Grasswrens, Fernwren, Fieldwrens, Heathwrens and Scrubwrens.

Except for the Best of 2020 competition, all entries must have been taken within three years of the opening date of the competition; this is a change to our standard competition rules.  The competition dates are now available, on the 2021 Competition Themes page.

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.