May 2026 Wildlife Photography Contest Beginner Category Winner

A Walk Among Gold by Geoffray-Henri Desrousseaux

Varanger, in the far northeast of Norway, had been on my mind for years. In early summer, the Arctic light never truly disappears — it simply leans low across the tundra and turns the long evening hours to molten gold. I had come for the breeding waders, but it was a stretch of damp coastal meadow that stopped me: marsh buttercups had erupted into a dense, glowing carpet, and I knew that if a bird stepped into it at the right moment, the light would do the rest.

The Common Redshank is not a generous subject. Known as the “sentinel of the marshes” for its habit of raising the alarm at the faintest disturbance, it typically announces your presence to every other bird before you have even settled behind the lens. So I did the only thing that works with a wary wader: lay flat in the wet grass, eased in behind the 600mm, and waited.

Time stretched. The cold seeped up through my clothes. Then, almost casually, the redshank picked its way out of the reeds and into the buttercups, pausing exactly where the foreground and background dissolved into soft golden bokeh. For a few seconds the bird hung suspended in light, its red legs and bill the only sharp notes in a sea of yellow. I pressed the shutter and held my breath.

Canon EOS R5 · RF 600mm f/4 L IS USM · f/4 · 1/640s · ISO 125