The German Society for Nature Photography (GDT) just announced the winning images in its annual members-only photo competition, selected from more than 8,000 entries in seven categories, including Birds, Mammals, Other Animals, Plants & Fungi, Landscapes, and Nature’s Studio. Contest organizers were kind enough to share some of the winning and honored photographs with us below.
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Surfing the Wave. First Place, Birds. Gentoo penguin, Sea Lion Island, Falkland Islands. Gentoos are the fastest swimmers among penguins and agile enough to surf breaking waves. #
Eyes Shut and Waiting for Spring. Second Place, Mammals. Alpine ibex are perfectly adapted to the inhospitable conditions at high elevations and can even survive severe winter storms. #
Fog Bow. Eighth Place, Landscapes. A fog bow, seen on a 2023 expedition cruise along the Denmark Strait in East Greenland. #
Aerobatics in Morning Light. Second Place, Nature's Studio. In the warm glow of the morning sun in the Wadden Sea, a pair of wagtails chase each other through the air. #
Eye of the Desert. Fourth Place, Nature's Studio. Dune landscape in Lençóis Maranhenses, Brazil. The formation resembles an eye with a green pupil and an eyelid. #
In the Eye of the Cheetah. Eighth Place, Mammals. "But cheetahs don't kill zebras!" proclaimed our astounded guide in Madikwe, South Africa. But this cheetah with three adolescents in tow managed to do just that. #
Foggy Morning in Bavaria. Third Place (tie), Landscapes. A view of Bavarian mountains in the early morning sun while low-lying regions remain shrouded in fog. #
Incoming. Second Place, Birds. Whooper swans, seen during a snowstorm on a frozen lake in Hokkaido, Japan. #
Crab Art. Sventh Place, Nature's Studio. A striking formation on a beach in Malaysia. Sand-bubbler crabs sift through sand searching for food. Discarded grains are rolled into pellets to ensure the same sand isn't sifted twice. #
Greedy Kestrels. Seventh Place, Birds. Just a few days before fledging, Dortmund, 2023. #
Frosty Bell(e). Second Place, Plants and Fungi. A pasqueflower on a frosty morning. #
Morning Roll Call. Third Place, Birds. Black skimmers (Rynchops niger) on the east coast of Florida. #
Inferno. Third Place (tie), Landscapes. Glowing trunks of a spruce forest, in which flames repeatedly flare up; first night of the 2022 wildfire in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. #
Ice Structures. Fifth Place, Nature's Studio. A lateral view into an ice floe at Fjallsárlón, Iceland. #
Lapporten. Tenth Place, Landscapes. Lapporten is a striking U-shaped valley in Lapland, just outside Abisko National Park. #
Predator and Prey. Ninth Place, Birds, and Prize of the Jury winner. An eider drake tries in vain to snatch a mussel in Kieler Förde. #
Bonnet Mold. Fifth Place, Plants and Fungi. Bonnet with bonnet mold. This widespread pin mold primarily parasitizes this particular group of fungi. #
Mudflats at Sunset. Fifth Place, Other Animals. A blue-spotted mudskipper at sunset on a mudflat in Malaysia. #
Early Morning in the Mulde Floodplain. Sixth Place, Special Category: All Things Flow—Germany's River Landscapes. The photograph shows a tributary of the Mulde in early morning light. #
Ice Leopard. Tenth Place, Mammals. Antarctica is one of the most fragile ecosystems on Earth and home to some extremely unusual creatures. The leopard seal is one of only two apex predators in Antarctica and often found foraging in ice-covered waters. Although the seals feed mainly on krill, they also prey on juvenile seals and penguins chicks entering the water for the first time after fledging at the end of the austral summer. #
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