The theme for our third competition for 2021 is Birds in their Habitat (excluding waterbirds).  The challenge here is to photograph the bird in its habitat.  The bird needs to be clearly identifiable, as does the habitat in which it lives.  Comments need to address both the bird and the habitat.  For example, what is the habitat, why is it important, and is it a typical or unusual location for the species . No birds on sticks with clear backgrounds required here.  Examples are fruit-doves in rainforest trees, finches feeding on grass seeds, chats in heath, kingfishers by streams, honeyeaters on flowering shrubs or trees, emus in woodland, Glossy Black Cockatoos in casuarina trees, etc.  Waterbirds which are excluded are those listed in the Australian Bird Guide in the categories of Marine and Coastal Birds, and Freshwater Birds.

This competition is open to members for submission of entries until 6pm EST on Monday 9^th August 2021.  Images must have been taken during the last three years (that is, on or after 21^st June 2018).  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 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.  As usual, there are three competition levels: Entry, Intermediate and Advanced.  Please refer to the  Photo Gallery - Competitions - Competition Levels - Guidelines page for more details.  All three levels will be open to member voting at the close of submissions, and a Mystery Reviewer will judge all levels. 

Our June Zoom event for members on Wednesday 16th June was the second Lightroom Classic tutorial presented by Graham Cam: "How to Make Your Photos Pop with Lightroom Classic Local Adjustments".  Graham showed how to use Lightroom's selective adjustment tools, with an emphasis on subtle and refined.  This event was attended by about 60 members.  For those who were unable to attend at the time, we recorded the presentation, and it is now available for members to view, in Resources - Our Zoom Presentations. This video is accessible only to our members; you must be logged in to view it.

Member voting for the Cranes, Storks, Crakes, Rails and Swamphens competition, which closed for entries on 24^th May and for voting on 7^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 our members, with 227 images entered across the 3 competition levels by 82 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 – Cranes, Storks, Crakes, Rails and Swamphens

This category attracted 73 entries, from 25 photographers. 31 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Eurasian Coot, by Jason Moore (Image ID 46075)
• Commended - , by Jason Moore (Image ID 46307)
• Commended - Eurasian Coot, by Nathan Watson (Image ID 46403)
• Commended - Buff-banded Rail, by Steve Mantle (Image ID 45937)
• Commended - Brolga, by Beverley Van Praagh (Image ID 45844)

Intermediate Level – Cranes, Storks, Crakes, Rails and Swamphens

This category attracted 105 entries, from 41 photographers. 34 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Brolga, by Jennifer Carr (Image ID 45794)
• Commended - Eurasian Coot, by Mark Locker (Image ID 45925)
• Commended - Buff-banded Rail, by Graham Gall (Image ID 46386)
• Commended - Dusky Moorhen, by Steven Roe (Image ID 46438)
• Commended - Buff-banded Rail, by Jane Putland (Image ID 46126)

Entry Level – Cranes, Storks, Crakes, Rails and Swamphens

This category attracted 49 entries, from 16 photographers. 33 members voted, with the following result:

• Winner - Purple Swamphen, by Philip d'Auvergne (Image ID 46377)
• Commended - Australian Spotted Crake, by Linda Waters (Image ID 46289)
• Commended - Australian Spotted Crake, by Denise Denham (Image ID 45681)
• Commended - Eurasian Coot, by James Hider (Image ID 46419)
• Commended - Brolga, by Indrani Pathirage (Image ID 46434)

Congratulations to all these photographers for their quality images.

Our Mystery Reviewers have completed their assessments of the images in each level of the Cranes, Storks, Crakes, Rails and Swamphens competition; their ratings are as follows:

Advanced Level – Cranes, Storks, Crakes, Rails and Swamphens

• Winner - Eurasian Coot, by Jason Moore (Image ID 46075)
• Highly Commended - Highly Commended - Buff-banded Rail, by Steven Brumby (Image ID 46447)
• Highly Commended - Eurasian Coot, by Con Duyvestyn (Image ID 46269)
• Commended - Brolga, by Con Duyvestyn (Image ID 46268)
• Commended - Buff-banded Rail, by Steve Mantle (Image ID 45937)
• Commended - Purple Swamphen, by Terence Alexander (Image ID 46410)
• Special Mention - Dusky Moorhen, by Terence Alexander (Image ID 46413)
• Special Mention - Purple Swamphen, by Mark Lethlean (Image ID 46041)
• Special Mention - Brolga, by Beverely Van Praagh (Image ID 45844)
• Special Mention - Buff-banded Rail, by Hayley Alexander (Image ID 46429)
• Special Mention - Black-necked Stork, by Steven Brumby (Image ID 46445)
• Special Mention - Eurasian Coot, by Nathan Watson (Image ID 46403)

Intermediate Level – Cranes, Storks, Crakes, Rails and Swamphens

• Winner - Eurasian Coot, by Richard Smart (Image ID 46000)
• Highly Commended - Dusky Moorhen, by Rodney Appleby (Image ID 46321)
• Commended - Baillon's Crake, by Gary Cousens (Image ID 46043)
• Commended - Eurasian Coot, by Darren Hibberd (Image ID 46304)
• Commended - Purple Swamphen, by Glenda Gore (Image ID 45887)
• Commended - Tasmanian Native-hen, by Michiko Iida (Image ID 46333)
• Commended - Black-necked Stork, by Geoffrey Dennis (Image ID 46276)
• Commended - Black-tailed Native-hen, by John Eley (Image ID 46359)
• Commended - Buff-banded Rail, by Graham Gall (Image ID 46386)
• Commended - Spotless Crake, by Peter Owen (Image ID 46358)
• Special Mention - Brolga, by Jennifer Carr (Image ID 45794
• Special Mention - Eurasian Coot, by Jane Putland (Image ID 45949)
• Special Mention - Tasmanian Native Hen, by Helen Greenwood (Image ID 46316)

Entry Level – Cranes, Storks, Crakes, Rails and Swamphens

• Winner - Australian Spotted Crake, by Linda Waters  (Image ID 46289)
• Highly Commended - Tasmanian Native-Hen, by Sylvia Wallis  (Image ID 45738)
• Highly Commended - Purple Swamphen, by Philip d’Auvergne  (Image ID 46377)
• Commended - Australian Spotted Crake, by Denise Denham  (Image ID 45681)
• Commended - Buff-banded Rail, by Chunfang Liu  (Image ID 46135)
• Special Mention - Eurasian Coot, by James Hider  (Image ID 46419)
• Special Mention - Eurasian Coot, by Astrid Ross  (Image ID 45867)
• Special Mention - Brolga, by Indrani Pathirage  (Image ID 46434)

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.

The BLP Photographer of the Year - our most prestigious award - goes to Gary King.  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.

Gary contributed 48 images, and entered all 4 competitions.  His major contribution to BLP activities was as coordinator of our Photo Competitions for 2020 (a postition he continues in for 2021); he also provided a very well worded and comprehensive summary of our 2020 Member survey which the committee found very useful for planning our activites since the survey.

Congratulations Gary, for a well-deserved award!

Photograph of the Year

Red-necked Avocets - Nathan Watson (Image ID 39859)

This image was chosen by member voting from a short-list of 12 images selected by a panel of image moderators and committee members; images from any panel member were not eligble for this award.

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.

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.