Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

Seven pictures from the archive sent off to the 2026 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.

Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam started the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards in Tanzania in 2015, with a very simple premise: wildlife doing something funny. The gallery of past finalists goes up online every year, entries are free, and part of the contest’s revenue goes to the Whitley Fund for Nature. The 2026 round is open until 30 June.

A few weeks ago I was going back through years of old pictures for a university submission and came across a bunch of silly animal snapshots I had forgotten about. I like taking pictures, especially of silly animals (who doesn’t), they just usually sit on the hard drive doing nothing. Finishing that more serious submission somehow gave me a small push to think the silly ones were worth sending in somewhere. I remembered the Comedy Wildlife Awards had a round open, checked the deadline, and sent seven in.

The entries

The Early Bird

Grey heron standing under an Open sign on a Kyoto canal at dusk

A grey heron (Ardea cinerea) standing beneath a restaurant’s “Open” sign on an evening canal walk in Kyoto, looking straight up as if reading the opening hours. Ready to order.

Morning Commute

A sika deer standing in the road as a football team crosses behind it in Nara

A sika deer (Cervus nippon) holding its ground on the road in Nara as a football team crosses behind it on the way to practice. Looks like they found their twelfth player.

Hold the Line

A pair of cockchafers mating upside down on a clothesline

Two cockchafers (Melolontha melolontha) mating while dangling upside down from a clothesline in Lower Austria. Not the most private spot, but they did not seem to mind.

Garden Eels Spaget

A colony of garden eels rising from the sand

A colony of spotted garden eels (Heteroconger hassi). They live with their tails anchored in the sand and rise up to their shoulders to feed in the current, then vanish into their holes the moment a diver drifts too close.

Sunbathing

A European mantis standing on a white sun lounger next to a pool

A European mantis (Mantis religiosa) claimed the best sun lounger by a pool in Portugal, striking its signature pose. All it is missing is a cocktail.

Moonwalking at the Marina

A yellow-legged gull mid-stride along a marina edge in Italy

A yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) moonwalking along the marina edge in Italy, mid-stride in perfect form. Michael Jackson would be proud.

Bottoms Up

A mute swan tipped forward with only its rear end above the water

A mute swan (Cygnus olor) tipping forward to reach the weeds at the bottom of an Austrian lake, leaving only its rear end above the water.

Bouquet Banquet

A European ground squirrel peeking up through a bed of purple and orange pansies

A European ground squirrel (Spermophilus citellus) working through a flower bed in Austria, paws clasped between bites. The pansies are excellent this time of year.

On small absurdities

Scrolling back through old folders for these was unexpectedly fun. Half of them I had forgotten, small absurdities I had caught and then left sitting on the hard drive. The Comedy Wildlife site does the same at scale: eleven years of finalists, and you can lose an afternoon there without meaning to.

We tend to meet nature with a kind of reverent dread. Fragile, in crisis, red in tooth and claw. And it is all of those things. But give it a chance, sit with it a while, and another side comes forward: a heron peering up at a sign, a swan upended in the weeds, creatures completely at ease with their own absurdity. Half an hour with pictures like these and your week gets a little lighter. You just remember how to hold things more loosely.