The world’s leading wildlife photography competition, Wildlife Photographer of the Year, presents a sneak peek of its sixty-first competition, which will be showcased in an exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, from Friday 17 October 2025. We are thrilled to see a couple of bird photographers recognised!
The exhibition will spotlight 100 inspiring and powerful images of our natural world, selected from a record-breaking 60,636 entries and judged anonymously on their creativity, originality and technical excellence by an international panel of expert judges across wildlife photography, filmmaking, science and conservation.
The category winners and the prestigious Grand Title and Young Grand Title awards will be announced on Tuesday 14 October 2025 at a ceremony hosted at the Natural History Museum by wildlife TV presenters and conservationists Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin. The ceremony will be available to watch live on the Natural History Museum’s YouTube channel.
Kathy Moran, Chair of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Jury, says: “Selected from a record-breaking over 60,000 images, this preview presents just a small insight into the 100 awe-inspiring, impactful and moving images in store for visitors to our exhibition in October. As an advocate for the power of photography, there is nothing more rewarding or moving than seeing our relationship to the natural world, in all its complexity and splendour, shared on the world’s biggest platform for wildlife photography.”
Highly Commended, Behaviour: Mammals
Gabriella Comi (Italy) witnesses a dramatic stand-off between a lion and a cobra.
Energy levels among the lions were low in the scorching midday sun. Gabriella and her guide, David, were about to move on when David spotted movement – a cobra was slithering towards two sleeping lions. Within seconds, the eldest of the pair was facing down the venomous intruder.
Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park is renowned for its large population of lions, with around 3,000 individuals living there. Lions are estimated to sleep for up to 20 hours a day to conserve energy.
Location: Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
Technical details: Fujifilm X-S10 + Tamron 150–500mm f5–6.7 lens at 288mm; 1/1600 at f5.6; ISO 250
Highly Commended, Urban Wildlife
Emmanuel Tardy (France) spots a brown-throated three-toed sloth clinging tightly to a barbed wire fence post.
Traffic slowed to a crawl as this sloth crossed the road, eventually reaching a fence post and gripping firmly. Concerned about not adding to the animal’s stress, Emmanuel patiently waited for people to leave the area before quickly taking this photo.
As their habitats become increasingly fragmented, sloths are forced to make more ground crossings to reach the safety of the next tree. In response, the Costa Rican government is working with local NGOs to establish biological corridors, including aerial bridges that reconnect their forest homes.
Location: El Tanque, San Carlos, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Technical details: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV + Sigma 24mm f1.4 lens; 1/1600 at f7.1 (+0.33 e/v); ISO 800
Highly Commended, 15 – 17 Years
Leana Kuster (Switzerland) shows a Greater Flamingo in the act of scratching its head with one of its unmistakably long legs. While on holiday in southern France, Leana had been watching flamingos in the Camargue. She was fascinated by their foraging behaviour as they moved gracefully through the shallow, saline wetlands, filter feeding for molluscs and crustaceans.
Flamingos use their tongues to force water through their specially adapted bills, which are lined with many rows of fine, comb-like plates. These help trap a species of brine shrimp called Artemia salina that gives the birds their famous pink hue.
Location: Pont de Gau, Camargue, France
Technical details: Nikon D810 + Tamron 150–600mm f5.6 lens; 1/500 at f6.3; ISO 250
Marina Cano (Spain) stumbles upon a group of cheetahs after they’ve caught a Günther’s dik-dik in Samburu National Reserve, Kenya. Marina watched the three young cheetahs practise their hunting skills while their mother looked on – a crucial stage in their journey to independence. The dik-dik was tossed into the air and killed just seconds after Marina took
the photograph.
Cheetah cubs spend their first two months hidden in a lair while their mother hunts. At around a year old, they begin joining her, learning how to stalk and which prey to pursue.
Location: Samburu National Park, Samburu County, Kenya
Technical details: Canon EOS R3 + 600mm f4 lens; 1/1250 at f8; ISO 6400
Highly Commended, 10 Years and Under
Jamie Smart (UK) portrays a red deer stag as it gives a mighty bellow during the autumn rut in Bradgate Park, UK. Jamie walked up and down a path in the park at a safe distance from the stag. She stretched herself up tall to avoid any long grass in the foreground spoiling her view.
The stag’s antlers have regrown since their annual shedding in spring. The ‘velvet’ – the soft skin that covered them during their growth – has now rubbed off, exposing the bone beneath. Each new set grows larger and more complex as the stag matures, with more intricate points called tines crowning the heads of older males.
Location: Bradgate Park, Leicestershire, England, UK
Technical details: Nikon Z9 + 800mm f6.3 lens; 1/800 at f6.3; ISO 450
Highly Commended, Animals in their Environment
Bertie Gregory (UK) freeze-frames the moment fledgling Emperor Penguin chicks walk along the edge of an ice shelf. Bertie spent two months with the penguin colony and witnessed most chicks using ice ramps to descend to sea level for food. But this group missed the easy way down. Keeping his drone at a safe distance, he watched as they took a 15-metre (49-foot) leap into the water.
Left to fend for themselves, emperor penguin chicks must find a way to make their first dip into the icy ocean to find food. Scientists believe the continued decline of sea ice in Antarctica may force more penguins to breed on ice shelves, making this behaviour increasingly common in the future.
Location: Ekström Ice Shelf, Atka Bay, Antarctica
Technical details: DJI Mavic 3 Pro + Hasselblad L2D-20c 24mm f2.8 lens; 1/50 at f3.5; ISO 100
Highly Commended, Photojournalism
Lakshitha Karunarathna (Sri Lanka) reveals a solitary Asian elephant navigating a waste disposal site in Sri Lanka.
For over three years, Lakshitha has documented human–elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. This image is the result of months of meticulous observation at two open rubbish tips, where herds regularly forage.
Around 20 elephants died over an eight-year period at a single site in Ampara after consuming indigestible food wrappers and other plastic waste. Alongside global efforts to reduce plastic use, conservationists stress the urgent need to secure landfills and prevent wildlife from accessing harmful materials.
Location: Ampara, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka
Technical details: DJI Mavic 3 Pro + Hasselblad L2D-20c 24mm f2.8 lens; 1/320 at f4 (0 e/v); ISO 200
Highly Commended, Behaviour: Invertebrates
Bidyut Kalita (India) photographs a hard-working potter wasp mid-flight with caterpillar prey for its young. Bidyut spotted this potter wasp building a mud chamber on a picture frame in his home in Goalpara, northeast India. Noticing it coming and going several times a day, he wedged the door open to allow it access until he finally saw it returning with prey gripped in its jaws.
Once the chamber is complete, the wasp sets about packing it with caterpillars paralysed by a sting, to provide live food for the developing larvae within.
Location: Goalpara, Assam, India
Technical details: Canon EOS R6 + 85mm f2 macro lens; 1/125 at f10; ISO 500; Canon Speedlite 470EX-AI flash + Beetle macro diffuser
Highly Commended, Natural Artistry
Kutub Uddin (Bangladesh/UK) spots a line of alien-like slime moulds on a fallen tree. Kutub found these blueberry-like spheres – the reproductive parts of a slime mould, each just 1–2 millimetres in diameter – in a nearby forest. His image resembles a fantasy landscape, though he describes the scene as a ‘bizarre family portrait’, complete with a tiny yellow insect egg.
A slime mould is a community of mobile single-celled, amoeba-like organisms that live independently until they come together and work as one to find food and reproduce.
Location: Slindon Wood, West Sussex, England, UK
Technical details: Canon EOS R5 + 65mm f2.8 1–5x macro lens; 0.6 at f5.6; ISO 200; focus stack of 78 images
Highly Commended, Wetlands: The Bigger Picture
Jassen Todorov (USA) depicts the clouds reflected in salt ponds that span San Francisco Bay.
Flying his single-engine Piper Warrior into San Francisco International Airport, Jassen never tires of the changing colours of the ponds. On this occasion, he says, ‘the light during the golden hour, at sunset, was magnificent’.
The process of salt collection in the bay was industrialised in the 1800s. Since 2003, the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project has acquired 6,000 hectares (nearly 15,000 acres). By removing artificial dykes, the project is recreating tidal marsh habitat, allowing salt-tolerant plants and wildlife to flourish once more.
Location: San Francisco Bay, California, USA
Technical details: Nikon D810 + 70–200mm f2.8 lens at 70mm; 1/400 at f2.8; ISO 280
Highly Commended, Wetlands: The Bigger Picture
Isaac Szabo (USA) watches longnose gars spawn in a crystal-clear Florida river. Wrapping his feet around a drowned tree, Isaac photographed this female longnose gar with several males during the mating season. The presence of the turtle was, for Isaac, the ‘icing on the cake’, as it ‘gives a sense of the whole ecosystem’.
This river is one of more than 1,000 waterways fed by freshwater springs renowned for their clarity. Maintaining the aquifers that supply these springs is vital not only for iconic wildlife such as manatees, but also for providing drinking water to nearly half of Florida.
Location: Columbia County, Florida, USA
Technical details: Sony α7R II + Nikonos RS 13mm f2.8 lens;
1/30 at f8; ISO 200; Inon Z-240 strobes
Highly Commended, Animal Portraits
Amit Eshel (Israel) gets eye-level with an inquisitive pack of Arctic wolves.
In temperatures of -35°C (-31°F), Amit struggled to fulfil his dream of photographing the elusive Arctic wolves of Ellesmere Island. But then, on the twelfth day of his second trip, they came closer than he had ever imagined, so close that he could smell their breath.
Restricted to Canada’s most northern territories and northern Greenland, Arctic wolves are curious of humans due to a lack of interaction. They’re a snow-white subspecies of the grey wolf, pack animals that hunt hares and musk oxen.
Location: Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada
Technical details: Canon EOS R5 + 24–105mm f4 lens; 1/1250 at f11; ISO 2000
