The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Photographers capture stunning British wildlife
NATURE: Awards for British wildlife photography reveal talent of snappers
A ghostly shot of the flight paths of Daubenton’s bats, which took months to capture, has scooped top prize in the British Wildlife Photography Awards.
A portrait of a badger, a great skua eating a puffin, a magpie on railings in the snow, a close-up of a nursery web spider waiting among petals for her prey, and grey seals being released were among the winning shots in the contest.
Paul Colley, from Swindon, Wiltshire, won the overall prize of £5,000 for his image Contrails At Dawn of Daubenton’s bats at Coate Water Country Park.
Capturing the flight of the high-speed mammals in the dark required an infrared camera and lighting system that was 14 months in development, and as the bats are a protected species they were photographed following advice from conservation experts.
Mr Colley said: “No other image in my portfolio had been so clearly conceived and yet so difficult to achieve.
“My artistic intent was to capture this extraordinary little bat’s speed of movement and hunting flight path, but the journey to success was littered with disappointing failures.”
He said he was supported by fellow photographers in his endeavour, adding: “There were the lows felt during months of long, cold and exhausting dusk-todawn sessions, sometimes waist-deep in water and often without getting a single usable image.
“And then the natural highs of those lightbulb moments, when new ideas blossomed, problems were solved and the project inched closer towards the potential to win this exceptional accolade.”
Prizes for top pictures were awarded in 15 categories, including ones that focus on the coasts, close-up images of the natural world, the same subject through the seasons, video, and a documentary series of photographs.
In the junior categories, Ivan Carter, 17, from Kent, won for his shot of tadpoles, and nine-year-old Lucy Farrell, from Sunderland, scooped top prize for a close-up of a cockchafer beetle.