Scottish Seabird Photography Competition

In Celebration of 25 Years of the Scottish Seabird Centre

Enter your favourite seabird images to our new Scottish seabird photography competition for the chance to win amazing prizes, with £500 worth of Opticron vouchers up for grabs and a FREE space on a 2026 Bass Rock landing trip!

Scotland is home to internationally important seabird colonies, from the mighty gannets of the Bass Rock to the spectacular puffinries of St Kilda. Over 5 million seabirds breed around our shores each year; and wherever you are along Scotland’s coast the sight and sound of seabirds will be an integral part of your summer seaside experience.

Our new Seabird Photography competition calls on amateur photographers of all ages to capture images that represent Scotland’s amazing seabirds.

The deadline for sumbissions is 29 August 2025.

How to Enter
Entrants can submit up to ten photos in total (in landscape orientation and as JPEGS). To enter your photos, you will need to send your chosen images via WeTransfer (or any other transfer service) to photos@seabird.org. A £5 recommended donation is requested for each entrant.

For this competition we are looking for images of any of the 23 seabirds that breed in Scotland each year. These include: Atlantic puffins, Northern gannets, razorbills, common guillemots, black guillemots, kittiwakes, herring gulls, great black-backed gulls, lesser black-backed gulls, common gulls, black-headed gulls, roseate terns, Arctic terns, common terns, little terns, sandwich terns, fulmars, European storm-petrels, Leach’s storm-petrels, Manx shearwaters, shags, great skuas, and Arctic skuas.

The best image of each seabird species will be displayed in an exhibition in our harbour space, next to the boat office in our Winter Exhibition. The best 12 images from this selection will also be included in our 2026 Scottish Seabird Calendar which will be used to raise funds for our vital conservation and education work.

Top tip: entering a photo of a less-photographed species (i.e. not puffins!) will give you a better chance of featuring in the exhibition and/or calendar!

Black guillemot, fulmar and European shag (images left to right).
(c) Jamie McDermaid

The Judges

We’re thrilled to have two very special judges on side to help us choose the winners; zoologist, wildlife TV presenter, author and our Seabird Ambassador Megan McCubbin; and Wildlife photographer of the year, presenter and wildlife expedition guide Rachel Bigsby. Helping them with the selection will be our Senior Conservation Officer Emily Burton and Jamie McDermaid our talented resident photographer and Marking and Communications Officer.

The Prizes

Find Out More About Scotland's Seabirds

The Terms and Conditions

Thanks to Opticron for supporting this competition.