Blooms, birds and beautiful bugs

Alice Wood focuses in on the season’s top photographs from our reserves and beyond.

This spring we have seen a plethora of wildlife across Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside, emerging from hibernation and returning to their preferred habitats, ready for the warmer summer months to begin. It has been a wonderful season for wildlife - and for our photography competition!

The photography competition continues to be sponsored by in focus, the binoculars specialist, who very kindly offer a £100 voucher as the prize each month.

Based in the Lookout hide at Brockholes Nature Reserve, in focus have a wide selection of binoculars and scopes to help you keep a closer eye on the incredible wildlife we are blessed with on our reserves.

The theme for February was ‘winter birds’ and our winner captured it perfectly. Les Price claimed first place with her incredible little stonechat. Leslie managed to capture this lovely little bird with such incredible detail, highlighting the incredible colours of its plumage as it perched atop a frosted post.

The top spot in March went to John Cobham with his fantastic frog. From the expression on the frog’s face to the flawless colour match between the markings on the frog and frogspawn floating on the surface of the pond, this photograph perfectly encapsulated the ‘signs of spring’ theme.

This stunning little nuthatch was spotted by Leah Taylor, nesting in a tree. The timing of this image is incredible, capturing the nuthatch peering from its nest at the awaiting photographer below, wonderful!

April’s photography competition saw the return of our fantastic bugs, under the theme of ‘a bugs life’. First place went to Michaela Moville and her black beetle. We loved the way that Michaela captured her close-up of this tiny beetle enjoying a delicious looking leaf and the clarity of the beetle against the blurred background was very impressive.

This magnificent common green shield bug was snapped by Stephen Timothy. His ability to capture the details of this small green bug with such clarity is wonderful to see, alongside the contrast between the green hues of the bug and the white of the flower.

Kerrilee Barrett was the winner of May’s competition with her fantastic image titled ‘Childhood Memories’. This photograph captures the incredible vibrancy of the buttercup and as the title suggests, transports you back to your childhood memories of running through fields full of buttercups. The way that the image was taken from below was a fantastic touch, filling the frame with a wonderful yellow glow.

As always if you feel inspired to get out in the natural world and capture some wildlife shots after viewing our recent entries, why not enter our competition? Take a look at this month’s theme and submit your entries to photocomp@lancswt.org.uk