Nature journal announces winners of its annual Scientists at Work photography competition

The overall winning photograph shows 19 northern bald ibises in flight behind a yellow-parachuted ultralight aircraft over Andalusia, Spain, captured by Gunnar Hartmann, an undergraduate in biogeoscience at the University of Koblenz. Hartmann spent 50 days in fall 2024 with Waldrappteam, a conservation and research group, as they guided the birds — a species that vanished from Europe roughly 400 years ago due to overhunting — along a relearned migratory route.

According to NPR's reporting, a surviving population of the northern bald ibis was found in Syria and Morocco about a century ago. Scientists brought some birds to Europe to be reared in captivity and bonded with human handlers, who now teach each new generation to migrate by leading them in aircraft. Hartmann described the moment of the photograph, taken on a "cool, rosemary-scented morning" in Jaén, as "super emotional," noting the flock had been reluctant to follow the aircraft before finally taking flight.

Allen Tian, a PhD student at Queen's University in Ontario, received a win for an aerial image of a toxic algal bloom in Dog Lake, Ontario. Tian described the bloom as "putrid from the ground" — known for poisoning local dogs and livestock — yet "really beautiful from the air," likening its swirling green surface to impressionist painting. His team researches how to monitor and predict such blooms, which cause environmental and economic harm.