Our first photo competition for this year is Best of 2020.  As the name implies, we invite you to submit your best image(s) taken during 2020.

This competition is open to members for submission of entries until 6pm AEDST Monday 8^th March 2021.  The normal 2-year time limit for photos does not apply for this competition; images for this competition must have been taken during 2020 (ie. between 1^st January 2020 and 31^st December 2020).  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; there may be a delay in publishing these reviews for this competition. 

The theme for the third competition this year has been changed from Birds in the Landscape to Birds in their Habitat (excluding waterbirds).  Please check the changed requirements for this theme on the 2021 Competition Themes page so that you can accumulate appropriate entry images prior to this competition's commencement on 21 June.

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 Jason Moore
   Bronze medal  – awarded to Stephen Garth

Intermediate Level Competition

   Gold medal  – awarded to Chris Young
   Silver medal  – awarded to Linda Unwin
   Bronze medal – awarded to Mary Wheeler

Entry Level Competition

   Gold medal  – awarded to Graham Gall
   Silver medal  – awarded to Diana Womersley
   Bronze medal – awarded to Donna Evans

Congratulations to all our winners!

Our Zoom presentation, Members Inspiring Members, on Wednesday 10^th December was attended by 75 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 Video Tutorials -Members Inspiring Members (M).  This video is accessible only to our members; you must be logged in to view it.  We extend our thanks to the presenters, Glenn Pure, Brian O’Leary, Nathan Watson, Sandy Castle and Con Duyvestyn, who all did a wonderful job of presenting their images and stories.

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

Advanced Level – Reflections

• Winner: Brolgas, by Con Duyvestyn (Image ID 42538)
• Highly Commended: Mulga Parrot, by Bill Harding (Image ID 42875)
• Commended: Emu, by Jill Wilson (Image ID 42509)
• Commended: Australian Pelican, by Ian Smissen (Image ID 42721)
• Commended: Marsh Sandpiper, by Terence Alexander (Image ID 43235)
• Commended - Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, by Jason Moore (Image ID 42887)
• Special Mention - Black Swan, by Con Duyvestyn (Image ID 42732)
• Special Mention - Australasian Grebe, by Steve Mantle (Image ID 42796)
• Special Mention - Brown Quail, by Steve Mantle (Image ID 42564)
• Special Mention - Great Egret, by Ian Smissen (Image ID 42720)
• Special Mention - Black-bellied Crimson Finch, by Mark Lethlean (Image ID 42987)
• Special Mention - Great Egret, by Peter Bennet (Image ID 42597)
• Special Mention - White faced Heron, by Bill Harding (Image ID 42843)
• Special Mention - Sharp tailed Sandpiper, by Jason Moore (Image ID 42935)

Intermediate Level – Reflections

• Winner - Yellow-billed Spoonbill, by Nathan Watson (Image ID 43239)
• Highly Commended - Red-necked Avocet, by Nathan Watson (Image ID 42804)
• Commended - Black-fronted Dotterel, by Linda Unwin (Image ID 43246)
• Commended - Splendid Fairywren, by Woody Woodhouse (Image ID 43241)
• Commended - Australasian Grebe, by Barry Deacon (Image ID 42783)
• Commended - Bluebonnet, by Mary Wheeler (Image ID 43184)
• Honourable Mention - Bourke's Parrot, by Linda Unwin (ID 43191)
• Honourable Mention - Red-necked Stint, by Jane Putland (ID 42883)
• Honourable Mention - Red-necked Avocet, by Linda Unwin (ID 43202)

Entry Level – Reflections

• Winner - Australian Pelican, by Bob Durant (Image ID 43149)
• Highly Commended - Pied Stilt, by Diana Womersley (Image ID 42565)
• Highly Commended - White-faced Heron, by Alan Burdett (Image ID 42960)
• Commended - Whiskered Tern, by Glenda Gore (Image ID 42684)
• Commended - Australasian Grebe, by Donna Evans (Image ID 42847)

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 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 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.

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 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.
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.

Note: the theme for the third competition has changed from that originaly published ("Birds in the Landscape").

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.