Runner-up in Mammal Photographer of the Year!

This week, I was delighted to hear that my image of a rolling Mountain Hare had achieved the runner-up position in the Mammal Society’s Mammal Photographer of the Year competition. The email had actually gone in my junk folder, so I only discovered on the day that the announcement was made!

I took the shot on a trip to the Cairngorms, in amazing snowy conditions. I had been really lucky with this shot; one in a sequence of four that I took. I had been tracking this hare across the snowy landscape, when it paused and then rolled. It was over in a fraction of a second! Sometimes, you are just in the right place at the right time! They often roll in this way and it is thought it may be to help clean their coat and keep it in tip-top condition, which is essential in these harsh conditions.

Chuffed that Zeb Soames, Broadcaster and Mammal Society patron, who was on the judging panel, said  “Kate’s Rolling Mountain Hare has everything: photographic skill, terrific composition and a sense of drama and character in its subject. It’s a superb picture.”

I have won a photography day at the British Wildlife Centre. I am thrilled, as I have been meaning to visit the centre for a while. Photographing native animals in captivity can be a great way to practise skills, meaning a better chance of getting a shot in the wild.

To see all the winning shots, take a look at the Mammal Society website 

The winning image is this great fox shot. I love an image that tells a story and this urban fox, that had been foraging on cherries falling onto cars, is a perfect example! A massive congratulations to Roger Cox.  Roger says of his stunning image ‘Foxhall Zafira’ “This animal often foraged for the wild cherries that fell from the trees and landed in the wells between the bonnets and windscreens of parked cars. It was also used to getting food from people who threw food out of their car windows at night during the early hours. I took this picture…when it jumped up on my car to investigate if there was anything of interest for it, as I’d seen it do several times before.”

This fabulous shot of a common dolphin won the ‘Elusive mammal’ category for Dan Lettice.

It was also super to see some familiar names, of people I know,  within the winning images!

Alex White won the junior category with this lovely shot of a roe deer…

and Charlie Phillips got highly commended with this fantastic Bottle nose dolphin shot…

Great to see several papers take up the story and the images appeared on most of the online papers.

Some super images in the final choices and I feel privileged to have made it to runner up!

 

 



from www.wildlifekate.co.uk https://wildlifekate.wordpress.com/2020/03/13/runner-up-in-mammal-photographer-of-the-year/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2019 off to a reasonable start

Image
Overcast, 5°, light NNW. A Little Egret seen today on the way out to Lollingdon and appeared to drop down near Amwell Spring. The hill hosted around 100 Fieldfare and a flock of c50 Meadow Pipit for a time before moving off over the top. Several Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer around the hill and a single Corn Bunting . A small flock of c20 Pied Wagtail feeding out with the Sheep. A few more Fieldfare and Redwing scattered around the Lollingdon area, a Goldcrest , Grey Heron , Kestrel , a couple of Jay , 2 Bullfinch and several Starling amongst other species. A Brambling in a private garden. Per Alan Dawson. 2 Blackcap in TW’s garden and 2 Chiffchaff at CSW. The flock of c60 Golden Plover still around Cholsey Hill. Brambling (courtesy Alan Dawson) from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2019/01/2019-off-to-reasonable-start.html
Read more

A Butterfly day

Image
Another sunny day, 24°, light E. A walk alongside the Bunk line from Church road to the bypass. Butterflies were the order of the day with literally hundreds of Meadow Brown on the wing today. They were everywhere. Another 8 Painted Lady seen with some looking very tatty after a presumably long flight and ageing. Best one of the day was a single Silver-washed Fritillary seen flying around a large garden before disappearing from view. Good numbers of Marbled White all along the route. Other species noted were: Small Skipper , Large Skipper , Large White , Small White , Green-veined White , Brimstone (1), Brown Argus (3), Common Blue (8), Red Admiral (6), Small Tortoiseshell (c20), Comma (3), Speckled Wood (2), Ringlet (12) and Small Heath (2). Some thistles were in flower on the edge of a bean field and these held the majority of Painted Lady , Small Tort and Marbled White . Dragonflies: Banded Demoiselle (M&F), Large Red Damselfly and Southern Hawke
Read more

A Great Start to 2020 at Yew View – Tawny Owls & Interesting Feeding Station Meetings!

Image
We had a great year at Yew View last year, with lots of great wildlife and some amazing insights into the lives of our local wildlife, especially our lovely Tawny Owl pair who raised  their beautiful owlets to fledge into the garden. We built an otter holt, with cameras and encouraged as much wildlife as we could into this 7 acre site. We have lots of exciting ideas and projects for 2020, of course. Hopefully, after months of high river levels, we will get our otter holt up and running with its two cameras. It has spent more time under water than above water so far and the cameras are sitting up in the office, waiting for the river to be stable enough for me to feel confident about reinstalling them! We are also going to upgrade some of the cameras we have, as well as creating some new feeding stations. We have a new piece of land that is also going to be developed for wildlife this year….. a large pool and boggy area for dragonflies and damselflies, wild flower meadow, tree planting
Read more