
Backyard & City Birds
Backyard & City Birds Photo Contest Winners

Grand Prize Maureen Hills-Urbat
My Peanut
We are very fortunate to live in the foothills west of Calgary, Alberta and have a large variety of birds coming into the yard. One of my favorite pastimes is to sit on my deck to watch and photograph the birds. On this particular day I was watching the Blue Jays competing for peanuts in the yard and caught this brief altercation.

Second Prize Meryl Lorenzo
Hungry Hummingbird
This photo was taken in my backyard. We have 12 feeders, a few suet feeders and two hummingbird feeders. We also have three birdbaths – one of them heated during the winter months. After hurricane Sandy destroyed my garden, I replanted with plants the hummingbirds would like. Unfortunately, some trees shade the flowers at certain times of the day so I have to be patient for the hummingbird and the sunshine to be in the right spot at the right time. The timing was perfect for this shot. I didn’t realize he was after this bug until I saw it in the computer.

Third Prize Glenn Ostle
Wren feeds its chick
As we live in North Carolina, we have a lot of Carolina wrens in our backyard. They seem to be a species of bird that is quite comfortable having humans around and often build their nests in busy places. In our backyard, this wren chose to build its nest in the decomposing remains of a plant we had hanging close to the house. We watched the progress every day, taking pictures along the way. It was most exciting when the adult birds would bring back insects they had found, to feed to their hungry chicks.
prize
$1,000 cash prize
One (1) Canon PowerShot SX70 HS
One (1) Gura Gear 45 Kiboko v2.0 22L backpack
One (1) Gura Gear 45 Et Cetera 2L case
One (1) choice out of 3 courses (Bird Photography, Growing Wild, or Warbler Identification) from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bird Academy
One (1) Ameristep Doghouse Blind for Wildlife Photography
One (1) DutchCrafters Plastic Platform Ground Bird Feeder Tray
One (1) Nikon 8×42 Monarch 5 Binoculars
One (1) one-year VIP BirdWatching membership
Placement as BirdWatching Facebook Cover Photo
Publication in a special multi-spread feature in an issue of BirdWatching
Publication in the BirdWatching online Winners’ gallery
prize
$500 cash prize
One (1) Gura Gear 45 Kiboko v2.0 22L backpack
One (1) Gura Gear 45 Et Cetera 2L case
One (1) choice out of 3 courses (Bird Photography, Growing Wild, or Warbler Identification) from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bird Academy
One (1) one-year VIP BirdWatching membership
Publication in a special multi-spread feature in an issue of BirdWatching
Publication in the BirdWatching online Winners’ gallery
prize
$1,000 cash prize
One (1) Canon PowerShot SX70 HS
One (1) Gura Gear 45 Kiboko v2.0 22L backpack
One (1) Gura Gear 45 Et Cetera 2L case
One (1) choice out of 3 courses (Bird Photography, Growing Wild, or Warbler Identification) from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bird Academy
One (1) Ameristep Doghouse Blind for Wildlife Photography
One (1) DutchCrafters Plastic Platform Ground Bird Feeder Tray
One (1) Nikon 8×42 Monarch 5 Binoculars
One (1) one-year VIP BirdWatching membership
Placement as BirdWatching Facebook Cover Photo
Publication in a special multi-spread feature in an issue of BirdWatching
Publication in the BirdWatching online Winners’ gallery
prize