After years of planning for the perfect bird photo, Vancouver's Liron Gertsman did it.

Now, he's been named Bird Photographer of the Year , for a photo he took in 2024 off the coast of Mexico during a total solar eclipse that captured the silhouette of a frigatebird in flight.

The story behind the photo goes back as far as 20 years, when Gertsman was five.

"At the time my parents had a tiny little, one of the basic, most simple cameras you could get at the time, and that's what I started taking pictures of birds with," he told CBC's .

Video Avid birder boy, 12, boasts 371 species spotted

Liron Gertsman won the Audubon Photography Awards' youth category in 2018 with his photo of cobalt-winged parakeets in Ecuador. The Vancouver photographer, then 17, also took both honourable menti

See Full Page