A diverse and wonderful winter

As winter rolls into spring, we saw our landscape change once more. From frost-bitten landscapes in the early morning light, to all kinds of wildlife enjoying the colder temperatures; the past few months have seen some marvellous entries from our amazing photographers, writes Alice Wood .

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.

"Fabulous photography competition. Fungi truly are fantastic, making up an entire kingdom of their own, with more than 15,000 species growing in the UK.

Alison Holmes claimed top spot with her image of a Kuehneromyces mutabilis, or more commonly known as sheathed wood tuft. The way she captured the colour and detail of this rather advanced organism really made it catch our discerning judge’s eye.

The autumnal landscape never disappoints, and November’s winner Paul Gray manged to capture it perfectly. This shot captures the shadowing of the trees beautifully, whilst still portraying the incredible colour of the evening light shining through. This perfectly captures the theme, ‘Shades of Autumn’.

‘Blackbird in a Christmas Tree’ by Stephen Root hit the mark for our December theme of ‘Christmas Card Wildlife’. The contrast between the black feathers of the bird against the festive green and red of the yew tree really made this photo shine.

This stunning photograph of a kestrel was captured by Les Price at Brockholes Nature Reserve. The snow-covered ground gives this winged beauty a frosty glow and shows off this particular Kestrel’s incredible brown feathers.

Christine Armstrong was selected as the winner of January’s competition with her incredible image of a hare. The ability to capture this magnificent mammal with such clarity allowing the viewer to closely see its incredible features, is very impressive.

This cheeky chappy was caught hunting by Trevor Southward. Weasels are the UK’s smallest carnivore and can be found living in lots of different habitats. This weasel is definitely not camera shy as it poses for this incredible picture, by looking right at the camera and showing off its amazing, elongated body.

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