SINWP Bird Photographer of the Year 2019 in aid of RSPB – Winner Announced

Thomas Vijayans’ image entitled ‘My Family’

Now in its second year, The Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers are delighted to announce the winners of the SINWP Bird Photographer of the Year 2019 in aid of RSPB.

Well over 2,000 photographs were entered into this competition from around the globe. We’ve seen everything from bald eagles, puffins, peacocks, kingfishers and everything in between, and the quality has been absolutely stunning.

The winning entry by Thomas Vijayan from Ontario, Canada was of a family of emperor penguins entitled “My Family”. Thomas has won a collection of prizes worth over £1,145.  

It was organised in aid of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) who benefitted to the tune of £2,850,84 from the minimum donation of £1 per entry.

Thomas says ‘’ Thank you so much for this wonderful news. It came to me like a surprise thank you so much.’’ The image was shot on a Nikon D5, Lens 7-200mm, F stop 3.2, ISO 100, Shutter speed 1/3200.

Mike McNamee ‘’Our judges were presented with anonymised images and I left them to make their choices over a couple of weeks, without interference – they are after all specialists in their subject, having photographed birds all over the world for many years! I made my judge’s choice independently. I liked the situation shown for we can be assured that we are looking at good fieldcraft rather than a visitation to a commercially set up hide and habituated birds.’’

Judges’ Comments

As might be expected we had a hard time in deciding the winner and deciding the positioning of the top five images. The photographers’ experience and photographic skills are improving year on year so determining the top 20 images was not a difficult task; but deciding the top 10 and then the top five did indeed prove very difficult indeed. Having said that a decision had to be made and our congratulations go out to our worthy winners as well as our admiration for all these commended images on display.

2nd place was awarded to Michael John Erwin from Staffordshire, England and 3rd place was awarded to Feargal Quinn from County Meath, Ireland both winning a great range of prizes.

View the winning images here https://sinwp.com/bird/2019-1st.htm