The winner of this year's Nikon Comedy Wildlife Award has been announced, and it is a perfectly timed snapshot of a gannet on an exceptionally windy day. The photograph, titled 'Now, where's my nest?' by Alison Tuck, captures the bird blinded by grass atop Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire.
Other notable entries included an elephant covering its eyes with its large ears, two lemurs appearing to have a chat on a rock, and a marching gorilla. These hilarious submissions from around the world were shortlisted for the 2025 awards and voted on by the public earlier this year.
The Category Winners and Overall Competition Winner were announced in December last year, but the People's Choice Vote is a standalone category where the judges step aside and let the public decide. Crowned winner Alison Tuck said: 'Winning the Sterna People’s Choice Award means a lot to me. It was really exciting to get into the finals with my gannet and I was honoured to get a Highly Commended. However, being awarded this category is something else and I am really chuffed and grateful to all the people who voted for me – not forgetting to mention how much fun I had – it is The Nikon Wildlife Comedy Awards after all!'
Alison, from the UK, exhibited her first mounted work at the age of 15 in London. She explained the process behind her winning image: 'My gannet image was taken on a very breezy day in Yorkshire on the Bempton Cliffs. There was an onshore wind which meant we couldn’t shoot from the boat, however the wind played to our favour as the gannets were being pushed towards and up the cliffs giving us ample opportunity to get some lovely close-up images of them collecting grass for their nests. Thank goodness! I love taking lots of photos especially of wildlife, from a tiny ant to a large elephant on land, a small crab to an orca whale in the sea or a tiny sun bird to a soaring raptor in the air, they all have their own history to tell within the world and for me capturing their stories is something very special.'
Other entries in the competition included a family of laughing lions, a flying red squirrel, a playfighting trio of foxes, and a bird with a Claudia Winkleman-style hairdo. The Comedy Wildlife Awards began modestly in 2015 as a photographic competition. Since then, under founders Paul Joynson-Hicks MBE and Tom Sullam, it has grown into a global competition with sustainability at its heart. In 2026, the competition will donate 10 per cent of its profits to the Born Free Foundation, an international wildlife charity that rescues and protects wild animals from exploitation and conserves threatened species and their natural habitats for generations to come.
The free competition, open to wildlife photography novices, amateurs, and professionals using any camera brand, 'celebrates the hilarity of our natural world and highlights what we need to do to protect it.'
