GRAND PRIZE
Anup Shah
Chippenham, England
“It is powerful and decisive, the pace compact yet energetic,” says Anup Shah of this year’s spectacular top photo, catching zebras at the edge of a river crossing in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve. “I wanted the viewer to feel the energy in the path of a galloping herd.” We do, and it’s exhilarating.
BABY ANIMALS
FIRST PLACE
Torie Hilley
Ventura, California
Torie Hilley trudged through the mudflats of Alaska’s Lake Clark National Park and Preserve with a professional guide in July 2022, hoping to catch this coastal brown bear and her cubs in a line as they dug for clams. When Hilley spotted the family falling into formation on her last day, she dropped to one knee to preserve the moment. She later learned not all of the cubs survived the following weeks. “It reminded me to never take anything for granted,” she says.
BABY ANIMALS
SECOND PLACE
Carl D. Walsh
Dayton, Maine
Listed as endangered by Maine, the state’s piping plover population has seen some improvement in recent decades—a hopeful note suggested by the glow surrounding this days-old fledgling. To get this July 2022 photo, Carl D. Walsh “spent a lot of time lying in the sand, trying to capture the right vantage point and backlight” on a Cumberland County beach. “Many thousands of frames were shot,” he says.
BIRDS
FIRST PLACE
Suliman Alatiqi
Kuwait City, Kuwait
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Boomers Daily 