You be the Judge: Portrait

You Be the Judge: Portrait

Well, we have finally made it to the last category. While it has been a ton of work, far more than I could ever have imagined. But it has been a ton of fun, highly rewarding, and I believe, highly educational. As regular readers know, the judging for the BIRDS AS ART 1st International Bird Photography Competition has been complete for some time. All of the judges including me were stunned by the quality of the images. We have been and will continue to be posting all of the images that were sent to the judges category by category. Each of you will have a chance to judge each category. Please read the directions below carefully. Your votes will not determine the winning images but it (usually) has been and will continue to be fun to see how everyone’s votes compare to the votes of the judges. So far the top pick of the public vote has matched the top pick of the judge’s panel in several categories; in spite of the fact that this may very well be the strongest category, I am pretty sure that that will be the case here.

With 1153 images entered, this category was, as expected, hugely popular, the most popular by far. The 14 images sent to the five judges, and presented here below reveal that there were some very good images in this group. Here is the next-to-last thank you to Darrell, Chris, Julie, and Tim. And another big time thanks also to Peter Kes and Denise Ippolito for pitching in during the first rounds of image selection. We worked very hard for nearly three full days to get from more than 5500 images down to the final 163 that were sent to the judge’s panel.

Here we were looking simply looking for images that showed the whole bird.

Before you vote, please be sure to click on each image so that you can view it at full size. Then pick your five favorites and vote them 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 with 5 being your very favorite. Like this:

Roseate Spoonbills squabbling: 5
Siskins fighting: 4
Snowy Egrets midair combat: 3
Great Crested Grebe displaying: 2
Common Tern feeding chick: 1

Please do not let the votes of others or the names assigned to the images influence your vote. Please put each of your five favorites on its own line by hitting “enter” after each one. No ties; please assign a single digit, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 to each of your five favorites. As you will see there are a great many dramatic images here.

Please Note

If you wish to comment on any or all of the images, please do so below your five voting lines; this will make tallying the votes easier. Votes cast by those who fail to follow the formatting directions will be relegated to the Trash Bin.

The voting will be closed in about two days and the actual winning images for this category will be posted soon thereafter. A tally of the public vote along with my analysis and comments will follow.

Thanks for voting and please remember to breathe deeply and have fun.

Jacana chick on Lily-leaf

Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl

Songbird on teasel

Long-eared Owl

Kingfisher sky-pointing

Francolin

Common Yellowthroat

Short-toed Snake Eagle

Tropical Songbird

Giant Kingfisher

Sparrow

Fledgling Red-winged blackbird

Resplendent Quetzal

Raptor drinking