The BirdsEye team collected our ten favorite photos, then consulted professional photographers to choose the final three.

Here, along with a short story about each photo, are the winners.

FIRST PLACE
Debbie Reynolds, Sunbittern

Debbie’s story: “I love “shooting” birds, and just happened to be going to the Pantanal in September, saw your email asking for shots of South American Birds, and thought I would send you a few of my favorites. 

 “This photo was taken on the Cuiabá River, where we stayed at the end of the Transpantaneira Highway at the Hotel Pantanal Norte.  We were riding in an 8 person boat up and down the river, looking for birds and mammals, and spotted this Sunbittern on a sandbar, just getting ready to take off.  

“The boat was bouncing around, but I managed to lock my camera onto the bird before it took off, and it happened to fly right in front of the boat.  I was using my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV camera, with a 400 MM lens.  F/5.6 and ISO 640.”

SECOND PLACE
Alexandre Gualhanone, Yellow-fronted Woodpecker

Alexandre’s story: “This photo was taken on a trip to the Tucanos Trail in the city of Tapiraí, State of San Pablo, Brazil, in the company of great friends, also birdwatchers. The bird was approaching a feeder for food.

“The Tucanos Trail is one of the hotspot of the State of São Paulo. It has over 300 species of birds recorded on its self-guided trails, feeders and drinkers.”

This photo was taken with a Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f / 4.5-5.6L IS USM lens, exposure time: 1/50, aperture: f / 5.6, ISO: 500, distance: 148.0 mm.

You can find Alexandre and his beautiful photos on Instagram @gualhanonebirdwatching

THIRD PLACE
Bonnie Flamer, Hyacinth Macaw

Bonnie’s story: “I was able to witness these gorgeous Hyacinth Macaws at Porto Joffre in the central portion of the Mato Grosso, Pantanal, Brazil. I was with a photo group that was there for birding and Jaguars. We took a tour around the property for birds before we were to go out in boats to see the wildlife on the rivers and channels in the area.

“As we were coming to the end of our tour we saw this pair of Macaws playing at the top of a palm tree. They played for a very long time and I and my group were able to take many photos. We were also lucky to get the Ipy trees in the background as they only bloom their pink blossoms for 5 days out of the year and the contrast of the blue macaws and the pink in the background made the photos.

“I used a Nikon 7100 with an 80-400mm lens, at 1/800 and f6.3.”

Congrats to our winners, and thank you to everyone who participated! – The BirdsEye Team

Note: Special winners, who were among the first 25 to submit quality photos of species on our “need these birds” list, will be announced soon!

The post Winners of the Birds of South America Photo Contest appeared first on BirdsEye Nature Apps.

Announcing the Summer 2019 BirdsEye Photo Contest!

Thanks to users like you, BirdsEye Nature Apps has amassed one of the most complete and high-quality photo collections of birds, odes, and butterflies in the world! Our company is dedicated to acquiring a comprehensive photo library for our nature apps, and we rely on our users for many of these brilliant images.

To celebrate the summer, we are delighted to announce our second BirdsEye Photography Contest. This time, our contest will feature the beautiful birds of South America. The contest is designed to bolster our South American bird collection and highlight accomplished birders and photographers.

So if you’ve been birding in South America, or are planning a trip this summer, consider snapping a few shots to share with the BirdsEye community.

Enter today—for free—for a chance to win the following prizes.

First Prize: $100 Amazon giftcard

Second Prize: $50 Amazon giftcard

Third Prize: One free download of the Birds of Peru app

Additional Prizes: A one-year membership to BirdsEye Worldwide will also be awarded to the first 25 contestants who submit high-quality photos of any species on this list. These photos may be featured on our recently launched Birds of Ecuador app!

Photo Guidelines:

We are looking for photos of birds native to South America depicted accurately in their environment. These photos will feature in our apps and marketing campaigns to help users identify birds when they are in the field. We always give proper credit to the photographer.

Judges are looking for clean, unobstructed photos of birds in a natural environment. Extra consideration will be given to pictures of rarer birds or photos depicting unique bird behaviors.

Contest Rules:

Photos for this contest should be submitted to birdseye.photo/submit anytime between July 23, 2019 and September 30, 2019.

If you don’t already have a BirdsEye photo account, create one at birdseye.photo/create_account/.

All photo contest submissions must include the hashtag #photocontest2019 in the caption section of the submission page. This hashtag is the only way we will identify contest submissions.

Following #photocontest2019 in the caption, please include a short description of the bird. To verify photos were taken in South America, all submissions require location information.

Photos should be submitted as .JPGs and should be under 5 MB in size. We prefer to receive photos that are 576 x 720 pixels or larger.

Potential winners may be asked to provide higher resolution photos, and/or .RAW files to help in judging.

All submitters must agree to the BirdsEye Terms of Service.

Eligible Regions:

SOUTH AMERICA
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Galápagos Islands, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela

If you don’t have an BirdsEye photo account, create one now!

The post Photography Contest: Birds of South America appeared first on BirdsEye Nature Apps.

Congratulations to Tasha DiMarzio whose photograph of a Red Knot garnered the most votes from over 1,300 entries!

And congratulations to Wendell Gilgert, the new owner of a free pair of Zeiss binoculars! Wendell was selected at random from over 1,300 entrants who voted in the photo contest, winning a pair of TERRA ED 8×32 Zeiss binoculars.

Check out our current photo contest, featuring the birds of South America, ongoing until September 31, 2019!

BirdsEye would like to thank Zeiss for sponsoring our contest.

The post Who Shot it Best? appeared first on BirdsEye Nature Apps.

Congratulations are also in store for Pia Niewoonder, the new owner of a free pair of Zeiss binoculars! Pia was selected at random from over 2,400 entrants, winning a pair of TERRA ED 8×32 Zeiss binoculars. Upon winning, Pia remarked, “Wow—these are so awesome!! Thank you, I’m really enjoying them!”

Stay tuned for more photo contests like this—you too could win a free pair of binoculars or other cool swag.

BirdsEye would like to thank Zeiss for sponsoring our contest.

The post Who Shot it Best? appeared first on BirdsEye Nature Apps.

Thanks to all of you wonderful birders, we received over 700 submissions to first-ever photo contest! Thank you to all who submitted to the Tropical Bird Photo Contest. We were awed by the photographic skill and the diversity of species, habitats, and behaviors on display. After much deliberation among the BirdsEye staff and votes from two independent bird photographers, we are pleased to announce the winners.

First Prize

Eliot’s Storm Petrel (Oceanites gracilis)
Alan Fieldus, photographed at Las Bachas Beach on Isla Santa Cruz, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador

Seen at Las Bachas Beach on Isla Santa Cruz, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador

Runner-Up

Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus)
Anand Bhatia, photographed in Karnataka, India

Frozen in Flight, Karnataka, India.

Honorable Mention

Red-headed Weaver (Anaplectes rubriceps)
Debra Herst, photographed at the Tarangire Sopa Lodge in Tarangire, Tanzania

Taken on the grounds of the Tarangire Sopa Lodge in Tarangire, Tanzania in February 2018. This male weaver was in the process of starting a new nest.

Honorable Mention

Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (Glaucidium brasilianum)
Andrea Brannen, photographed in Cayo, Belize

This tiny owl’s prey is almost bigger than the owl!

A Collection Of Other Favorites

A sampling of some other photographs that our caught our judges’ eye.

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