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Funky animal hairdos and a smoking duck among 2025 Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards finalists

Topic:Animals

Thursday 23 OctoberThu 23 Oct 2025 at 1:56am

A bird with green grass stems on its face on a windy day — Now which direction is my nest? (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Alison Tuck)

The animal kingdom is a dynamic place, filled with plenty of action and drama.

Freeze and capture any moment in time and an animal's behaviour can become hilarious.

A dancing gorilla, a smoking duck and frog teamwork are among the 40 images shortlisted for this year's Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards.

Narrowed down from thousands of entries submitted by professional and amateur photographers from around the world, the competition aims to celebrate the hilarity of our natural wildlife.

And this year's selection does not disappoint.

The overall winner, category and highly commended winners will be announced on December 9.

Last year's winner was a photo of a red squirrel seemingly stuck in a tree.

Here is a selection of some of the finalists in the running for 2025.

A frog standing on the back of another frog trying to get up a wall — The shoulder of giants. (Andrew Mortimer: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)

Two Lemurs that look like they're doing yoga — Welcome to Zen Lemur Yoga Course! (Andrey Giljov: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)

A white tailed sea eagle with a bright yellow beak in the snow that looks like it's pointing — A white-tailed sea eagle saying "go away". (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Annette Kirby)

A porcupine fish in the ocean with its mouth open — What do you mean I need to see a dentist? (Bingqian Gao: Nikon Wildlife Photo Awards)

A family of lions with them all roaring at the same time — I Just Can't Wait To Be King. (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Bret Saalwaechter)

a squirrel that looks like it has a big fuzzy hair do — Bad Hair Day! (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Christy Grinton)

A bird that looks like it has a bowl hair cut — Great Hair Day! (David Fetters: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)

A bird that looks like its putting its landing gears down to land on water — Landing Gear Down. (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Erkko Badermann)

Two frogs fighting in the water — Baptism Of The Unwilling Convert. (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Grayson Bell)

An elephant that looks like its playing peek a boo with its ears — Peek a Boo. (Henry Szwinto: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)

Three Monkeys jumping around on a tree branch — Monkey Circus. (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Kalin Botev)

A duck that looks like it's smoking — Outdoor smoking zone. (Lars Beygang: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)

A lemure that is licking one of its fingers — "If you don't lick your fingers, you're only half enjoying it." (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Liliana Luca)

A gorilla that looks like it's stomping with its foot up — High Five. (Mark Meth-Cohn: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)

Three red foxes in the sand with the middle one falling into the sand head first — Hit the dance floor! (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Paula Rustemeier)

A squirrel that is airborne with its arms and legs out like a parachute — Squirrel airborne: Surrender mode. (Stefan Cruysberghs: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)

A bird that has the head of another bird in its beak — Sometimes you just want to bite your neighbour's head off … literally. (Supplied: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards/Warren Price)

A flamingo that's curled up into a ball and you can't see its face — We've all seen a flamingo but have you ever seen a flamingone? (Miles Astray: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)

A seagull that appears to have sprayed a eagle with its poo — A gull dropping a bomb on a white-tailed eagle. (Antoine Rezer: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)

A orangutan that looks like its posing to be painted — Paint Me Like One Of Your Forest Girls. (Michael Stavrakakis: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards)