Take a look at these amazing photos of birds - photographers of the year

A pristine white rock ptarmigan flying high over snow-covered mountains just won the grand prize in Bird Photographer of the Year 2022 competition. This contest saw over 20,000 astonishing images of birds taken by photographers from all over the world. These stunning photos and the contest are especially poignant nowadays as the most current investigation on the State of the World’s Birds by BirdLife International notes that half the world’s bird species are in downfall, with a lot of them at risk of extinction because of the climate crisis and not only.

The grand prize of £5,000 was won by the Norwegian photographer Erlend Haarberg with his stunning image shot above Tysfjorden. He explains that the white landscape and tough environment is these birds' home. The contest also donated a large sum to a charity that provides funding to bird conservation projects on the globe. The categories of these year were: Best Portrait, Birds in the Environment, Attention to Detail, Bird Behaviour, Birds in Flight, Black and White, Urban Birds and Creative Imagery.

For the category Young Bird Photographer of the Year, Levi Fitze from Switzerland won with the image "Facing the Storm". He spent some time on a small island in the North Sea, where the weather was harsh but where he also had the opportunity to see the birds fighting these tough conditions and photographed them successfully.

Ly Dang won Best Portrait category with an image titled "Strut Performer" shot during spring time, in the Great Basin of the American West. The photo shows a threatened species - Sage Grouse - performing a dance of mating in front of a female that needs to make a decision - who has the best genese?

Parham Pourahmad, U.S is also one of the young photographers of the year with a delicat yet poweful image of a hummingbird that catches droplets of water.

For the "Attention to detail" category, the winner is Andy Pollard who captured a sleeping King Penguin in the Falkland Island showing a very cute and adorable bird that could melt even the most cold hearted of us.

Peter Ismert, U.S., wins the Bird Behaviour category with "Duelling on the lek", a moving picture with Sage Grouses in a fight. This is also a way to attract and of course impress the female birds, while showing off their superiority. But this ritual causes trouble and fights among the birds and they could also be aggressive with humans.

The Gold Award for the Birds in Flight Category goes to Raoul Slater. Large areas of Australia are used for wheat farming. The towns are small and you can find truck stops and grain silos that are nowadays popular canvases for huge murals, attracting tourists into otherwise lonely places. Passing through Yelarbon, the photographer captured the Galahs that were going for the grain.

The Silver Award winner for the Urban Birds category is Laszlo Potozky from Transylvania, Romania, who photographed a little owl nested in an abandoned building. In fact, there was an entire family of owls hiding there - and the one he photographed looked like Gonzo, as the artist mentioned.

Shot by Tamas Koncz-Bisztricz, Hungary, the Pied Avocet chick won the Silver for the Young Bird Photographer 14-17 years category. The photograph was shot on a soda lake near Mórahalom. The artist says that so far, he has only photographed adult birds in this place, but he managed to catch this chick during the summer.

We can't leave behind one of the most stunning photographs of the competition that falls in the category Black and White. This was won by Henley Spiers from UK, who shot two worlds meeting: a school of fish and a double-crestet cormorant looking at the water and the fish. The bird looks like it's about to dive into its prey, fast and furious.