Audubon Florida Celebrates Sunshine State Winners in 2026 Audubon Photography Awards

At present the Nationwide Audubon Society introduced the winners of the 2026 Audubon Photography Awards, together with two images that seize chook life in Florida. Now in its seventeenth 12 months, the awards showcase beautiful pictures and movies that commemorate the sweetness and pleasure of birds whereas serving to to inform the story of hemispheric chook conservation. For the second 12 months, judges awarded prizes to residents of Chile and Colombia in addition to the US and Canada, highlighting how birds join folks throughout geographies and ecosystems.

Florida Winners

Jacqueline Burke received a Grand Prize for her {photograph} of a Roseate Spoonbill on the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in St. Augustine, FL. As a Grand Prize winner, Burke obtained $5,000 and a voyage to Antarctica with HX Expeditions. Peter Brannon obtained an Honorable Point out within the Feminine Chook class for his {photograph} of a Frequent Nighthawk in Tampa, FL, and Xiao Hu of Gainesville, FL obtained an Honorable Point out for his Barred Owl video recorded in Virginia.

“Audubon Florida is thrilled to see such an iconic Florida chook, the Roseate Spoonbill, featured in a grand prize-winning photograph,” says Julie Wraithmell, Govt Director, Audubon Florida. “Congratulations to Jacqueline Burke for profitable the grand prize within the U.S. and Canada, and likewise to Florida residents Peter Brannon and Xiao Hu for his or her honorable mentions on this 12 months’s Audubon Images Awards.”

Audubon Has Studied the Roseate Spoonbill Since 1939

The Audubon Everglades Analysis Station (ERS) was established within the Florida Keys in 1939 by Nationwide Audubon Society’s first director of analysis, Robert Porter Allen. Allen started a full-time research of the Roseate Spoonbill, dwelling amongst them in a tent for weeks at a time. On the time, scientists would sometimes research birds’ consuming habits by killing them and analyzing their abdomen contents. Nevertheless, the spoonbill was so scarce that Allen needed to discover one other strategy to research them. His analysis modified how scientists studied birds and left a legacy of greater than 85 years of information investigating the spoonbill and its habitat.

At present, ERS researchers proceed to check the conduct and nesting success of the enduring spoonbill, in addition to the circulate of recent water into Florida Bay and the impacts that the diversion of water has had all through the Everglades ecosystem.

Extra concerning the Audubon Images Awards

Winners are printed on-line in Audubon journal and shall be featured within the Fall 2026 print concern. The annual Prime 100 pictures shall be introduced on September 23, 2026, and extra picks shall be featured in digital galleries on Audubon’s web site.  

The 2027 Audubon Images Awards will open for entries on January 13, 2027. Go to Audubon’s web site for particulars on the Chile and Colombia and U.S. and Canada contests.  The winners and honorable mentions are printed on-line in Audubon journal, and winners shall be featured within the Fall 2026 print concern.