Diving Gannet Wins Bird Photographer of the Year 2026

Henley Spiers' underwater shot 'Sunball Rocket' of a diving northern gannet won the grand prize from more than 24,000 entries, with £5,000 donated to bird conservation.

The picture also won Gold in the Birds in the Environment category and comes with a £3,000 grand prize. Spiers explains the bird's dual life: tender pair bonds at the nest, then 'hunting mode' at sea, where the gannet shape-shifts into a pointed torpedo.

The story's surprise lies in the physics captured in a single frame. According to the competition's cited captions, northern gannets dive at speeds of up to 86 km/h — faster than Olympic divers, who will not exceed 60 km/h. Digital Camera World reports the birds are specially adapted for the impact: neck muscles lock their vertebrae in place, air sacs in the face and chest act as airbags, and their nostrils sit internally to keep water out during fishing dives. Spiers captured the moment with a Nikon Z8 in a Nauticam underwater housing, fitted with a fisheye lens.

The scale of the competition underscores how selective the win was. Organisers received more than 24,000 submissions from photographers around the world, competing across eight adult categories from Best Portrait to Conservation, plus Portfolio, Video and Conservation awards and three youth categories. PetaPixel notes standout category winners include Rahul Sachdev's gold-winning black-and-white ostrich at Amboseli and Ivan Sjögren's eye-to-eye frame of a short-eared owl in British Columbia.

Competition director Will Nicholls framed this year's results as a pointed statement for the current moment. 'In a world where AI-generated imagery is becoming increasingly common, this year's winners are a powerful reminder of the value of authenticity,' he said, adding that every image represents a real moment in the wild earned through patience, dedication and a genuine connection with nature. PetaPixel highlights that emphasis, noting the winning photographs were all made through patient fieldwork — including waiting for courtship displays and hunting routes — rather than synthetic generation.

The youth prize delivered its own delight. Sixteen-year-old Parham Pourahmad, from the United States, was named Young Bird Photographer of the Year for 'Moonlit Night,' a great horned owl silhouetted against a rising full moon in Los Gatos, California. According to Positive News, Pourahmad had set out at dusk hoping for a portrait of a nesting pair, but his plan changed when he saw the moon rise and one owl flew down to a pine tree — he quickly repositioned to frame it against the glowing disc.

The competition puts money behind its mission as well as beauty. Organisers say conservation is at its heart, and this year it donated more than £5,000 to partner charity Birds on the Brink, which funds grassroots bird conservation projects globally. The winning images will also be collected in a hardback book published by Graffeg, per Yahoo. For readers inspired to try, the next competition cycle, BPOTY 12, is already open for entries at birdpoty.com, welcoming amateur and professional photographers alike.