Benjamin Hams, Spirit Bird of the Dawson pub (LANDSCAPE & ENVIRONMENT 2026)

The Aurora Australis rarely makes an appearance this far north, so when it does, you can bet I’ll be out trying to photograph it. On this particular night the clouds kept rolling in, leaving only brief gaps to work with, and I went home thinking I’d missed the shot. It wasn’t until I looked through the images later that I noticed what I had captured. The Milky Way stretched across one side of the sky, the Aurora glowed on the other, and directly above the long-forgotten Dawson Pub was a dark cloud in the unmistakable shape of a bird. There was something almost eerie about it, as though it were watching over what remained below. The image had found its name: 'The Spirit Bird of Dawson Pub'

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.