Kakapo photo best in world

The winning photo. Photo / Shane McInnes

This breathtakingly detailed photograph by New Zealander Shane McInnes of an endangered kakapo has won first prize in an international contest to capture the world's rarest birds.

The competition aimed to secure images of the 566 most threatened birds on earth, and managed to motivate photographers to uncover nearly 90 per cent of the species categorised as either endangered, critically endangered or extinct in the wild.