Pictures support our work
NATURE has a way of making people do really nice things.
Only this week Nicholas Watts MBE started to make some of his wonderful photographs of wildlife free for everyone to use.
Nicholas is a great friend of the Wildlife Trusts, donating up to five per cent of the value of every sales order from Vine House Farm, his bird feed and bird feeders company, to supporting our work. Working on his 2,000-acre-plus farm has given him the opportunity to take thousands of images of wildlife over the years and now he is happy to share them with other nature lovers.
Nicholas is hugely keen to end the decline in farmland birds, so he has also been involved in much hedge-planting, creation of ponds, wild flower meadows, sympathetic management of drainage dykes, generous field margins to allow seed-rich weeds to grow and old farm buildings restored for barn owls to nest in.
Creating these wonderful habitats has meant the arrival of many different kinds of birds and Nicholas and his camera have been on hand to take some exceptional shots.
We are sharing Nick’s nature moments.
Locally we get support from amazing photographers. Peter Smith in Preston is the man behind the lens for many of the photos we have used in our ongoing Willow Tit Appeal.
He has a library of hundreds of species.
Then there is Peter Hunter, who has made it his life’s work to capture, on camera, roe deer, fox and kingfisher and their amazing behaviour.
We are also supported by cameramen and women loyal to their own local nature reserves, who willingly share their pictures because they realise it is helping us to publicise those amazing places, which they so love.
This is of course a form of volunteering but, like all volunteering, it is so much more than that. These photographs are helping the very nature they are capturing.
They are showing members of the public that we are surrounded by an amazing range of wild and wonderful nature.
In the words of Nicholas Watts: “The main reason I wanted my collection of photographs to be freely available to anyone, is that it’s a further practical way I can raise awareness of the importance of farming with wildlife and the environment in mind, plus more specifically the need for action to reverse the trend of declining songbird numbers. I also hope my work will inspire more people – especially the younger generation – to take up nature photography.”
I think that is a lovely sentiment.
If you want to look at Nick’s pictures or learn more about his work go to www.vinehousefarm.co. uk/blog/2017/12/12/ royalty-free- wild-birdphotos/ »●To support the work of the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside. »●Text WILD09 with the amount you want to donate to 70070.