Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 winners announced - see them in person in London

Winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 prizes have been revealed, and you can see them in person in London.

This year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition is on at the Natural History Museum until July 12th, and its People’s Choice Award winners have been announced.

There are five top picks, but the overall winner is from Josef Stefan, called Flying Rodent. It depicts a juvenile lynx playing with its prey, an ill-fated rodent that is seen mid-air in the image. Poor thing.

The image was shot in Torre de Juan Abad, a region in Spain, the lynx apparently playing with the animal for 20 minutes before losing interest.

It was followed by four runners-up, including one photographer from the UK. That’s Will Nicholls, whose Dancing in the Headlights image was shot in Canada’s Jasper National Park.

Dancing in the Headlights sees a pair of bear cubs play-fighting in the road, in front of a car, whose headlights act as backlighting for the scene.

Or there’s Family Rest from Canada’s Christopher Paetkau. It’s a photo of a polar bear mother and her cubs by the Hudson Bay coast. The use of a drone let Paetkau shoot the bears from above, from a position you certainly wouldn’t want to be in as a raw, fleshy human. It’s a delightful image.

For pure geometry of composition you can’t beat Beauty Against the Beast by Switzerland’s Alexandre Brisson. It’s a painting-like image, of a pair of flamingoes in flight between a set of power lines trailing off into the distance, while the rest of the flamingo pack chills out in blue waters below.

It’s a juxtaposition of industrial infrastructure and nature, all set to a sunset sky’s gradient. The image was captured in Namibia, in Wallis Bay, at a nature sanctuary.

Finally, there’s a rather grimmer image from Japan, Never-Ending Struggle by Kohei Nagira. It shows a sika deer with the head of another deer attached to its antlers, in some state of decay.

It’s presumed this followed a fight between the two. A local fisherman claims the deer dragged the corpse of its rival around for days before the head became detached. Grim stuff, but a striking photo.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition is on now at the Natural History Museum. Adult tickets costs £15.50, or £18 at peak times – you can book tickets online.

Other exhibitions currently on at the museum include Vision of Nature, which uses a mixed reality headset to bring elements of nature to life, and Our Story with David Attenborough. But you’ll need a separate ticket for each.

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