Travis Audubon

The competition was steep, but we have selected the winners of our 2026 Greg Lasley Photography Contest. The contest, part of our Birdathon fundraiser, raised $934.79 for Travis Audubon through entry fees, and we’re grateful to each of the 25 photographers who entered. Your care for Texas’s lovely birds really shows through your photographs.

Both judges were impressed by the quality of this year’s submissions, and that’s saying something considering our judges’ qualifications: judge Dave Read won last year’s Greg Lasley Photography Contest with his stunning photo of a Barn Swallow in flight, and judge Liam Molina is Travis Audubon’s very own Communications & Marketing Specialist, a fabulous graphic designer who’s got an incredible artistic eye.

There were 180 photo entries spanning a gamut of bird species, from shorebirds to warblers. Without further ado, here are our winners!

Meet our Bird of the Week: The Tricolored Heron! 🏆

True to its name, the Tricolored Heron wears three colors at once. The upperparts, head, and neck are a soft, smoky blue-gray, often washed with lavender or purple in good light. What really sets a Tricolored Heron apart is how it hunts. Where a Great Blue Heron will stand statue-still and wait, and a Snowy Egret will hop and dash, the Tricolored Heron looks like it is rehearsing a ballet. It runs a few quick steps, freezes, pirouettes on one leg with the opposite wing held out, lunges, and starts again. Just before striking, it crouches so low that its belly often touches the water.

Learn more about the Tricolored Heron here. https://travisaudubon.org/murmurations/bird-of-the-week-tricolored-heron
Written by Yvonne Karnath