/ 2025 / Nature / Wildlife

• Prize
  Honorable Mention
• Photographer
  Rebecca Hall, United States
• Date of Photograph
  June 20, 2024

A male California Quail (Callipepla californica) perches atop a bush in my home backyard, watching over his partner and chicks while they forage on the ground below him. That spring the garden was full of Oak Moths, and I could see that one was fluttering around the male quail. After photographing the scene I realized that I had captured an oak moth flying directly above the quail. I was struck by the symmetry of the male quail guarding his family from above, while the moth hovers directly above the quail, resembling his guardian angel.