Photo of 'roadrunner' in front of Trump’s border wall wins prestigious contest

A Mexican photographer has won a prestigious photography competition for his photo of a roadrunner spotted near former US President Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall. Alejandro Prieto captured the moment as the bird perched in front of the barbed wires surrounding 2,000-mile "The Wall” built at the US-Mexico border.  Trump’s 2015 election campaign was popularized by the saying “Nobody builds walls better than me” as he later during the course of his presidency resort to building the “great wall” to curb the illegal immigration at the US Southern border. 

“The image tells an important story of habitat fragmentation, and how structures such as the border wall can prevent wildlife from migrating and moving into other areas. The wall dominates the image, with the roadrunner seemingly powerless and small in the frame,” Bird Photographer of the Year 2021 organizers wrote in a release on Tuesday. 

The image clicked by Prieto of a tiny bird observing the divisive fence won him the ‘Bird Photographer of the Year’ contest from among 22,000 entries submitted by professional photographers to bag the grand prize. The shot also won the golds award for ‘Birds in the Environment Category’. “Celebrating bird life from around the world, these images comprise some of the most incredible bird photos in the world taken by talented photographers,” the organizers wrote on the official Twitter handle.  They explained Alejandro Prieto’s click saying, "In this photograph, a Greater Roadrunner approaches the border wall at Naco, Arizona.” The photographer won the top prize of £5,000 and a prestigious title, the organizers informed in a release. 

The organizers handed another ‘Young Bird Photographer of the Year’ award which was bestowed to 17-year-old Levi Fitze for his image ‘Morning Lek’ that depicted a rooster during the sunrise. Fitze won £300 in vouchers for camera equipment. The organizers, each year, publish a high-quality “coffee-table” book that features the best images from the competition. This year, it plans to publish almost 300 images in this hardback collection that were submitted in the competition. 

Border Wall 'in despair' during monsoon rain 

Trump’s border wall hit the headlines earlier last week after at least six of its gates were washed out in a single location near Douglas due to the heavy rainfall, according to the photographs published by the website Gizmodo. In the images, the wall appears tattered in southern Arizona due to the summer monsoon rains that apparently “blew floodgates off their hinges” as per the description of the website. US Customs and Immigration Services officials confirmed the damages to the US news agencies saying that Trump's border wall has been in despair as other parts were also hit by heavy rainfall.