Photo of the Month Gallery
The beauty of nature photography is that it can become "surprise photography," capturing some rare and unusual moments that are well worth sharing. The Photo Of The Month Gallery is an annual collection of images and accounts with like-minded enthusiasts who were kind enough to share some of their inspirational moments on the PotM Calendar.
November 2024
The Lettuce Eaters by Roger Cox
400 km off the coast of Mozambique is a vast tropical island with palm-fringed white sandy shores, clear blue waters, secluded coves, and misty mountain rivers that surge from its east into a rain forest, only to trickle out to its west across a rocky, wind-swept, barren landscape.
Within this enclave of divided habitats live the lemurs, a diverse group of primates consisting of 103 species, all endemic to the mountains and jungles of Madagascar. Sadly, due to extensive deforestation, purpose-made fires, and poaching, 98% of all lemurs are threatened with extinction, including the iconic ring-tailed lemur, where less than 2000 remain in the wild, roughly the same number now in captivity.
Whereas lemurs prefer to dwell in trees, ring-tailed lemurs spend 60% of their time on the ground, frequently sunbathing with their arms wide apart, else travelling three to thirty-strong in matriarchal mobs, tails held high, whilst foraging for insects, nuts, eggs, flowers, fruit, and leaves. Amongst the troop are ranking males who constantly compete for females by rubbing their tails with special stink glands on their wrists and then wafting that scent into the faces of their rivals—the severity of the provocation being proportional to the strength of the odour. Yet at Marwell Zoo, it’s clear from a preference for lettuce that no such stink is ever created. For *pale and dark-eyed, their grey faces may be, but on the branches that bear them, these lettuce eaters know precisely when to receive their share.
* In reference to The Lotos Eaters by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – 3rd & 4th stanzas.
October 2024
Bourne, Lincolnshire
Photography is all about lighting, with a touch of personal perspective. So, seeing a subject in a different light, especially a wildlife one, can mean several things — like discovering a new facet of its life, using a more unusual portrait angle, or finding an ingenious way to tell a more compelling story.
In rear-curtain sync photography, only the second half of a camera’s shutter is in step with its flash to produce an image. Exposure times of 1/10th of a second or less are used to create a spectral effect from motion blur. The trick is to pick an eye-catching subject, like this triple-image trail of a greenfinch against a dark background—created not only to capture the bird aesthetically but also to focus our attention on the plight of greenfinches in Bourne and the rest of the UK since the early 2000s.
This olive-green finch with a bright flash of yellow in its wings is now classed as *threatened due to Trichomonosis, a pervasive parasitical disease you could say is depicted in the photo by the darkness surrounding it. In contrast, from our sync behind the magic curtain, is a recovery story portrayed by its three-in-one imagery. Starting with the lower faded body representing the bird’s threatened past; the less faded middle, its uncertain present and the more defined uppermost image, its emergence to a more solid future—a story, one would hope, is a true picture of our Greenfinch population and their situation today.
*Listed as Red in the UK Birds Red List, aka Birds of Conservation Concern 5 (2021)
September 2024
Epping Forest, Loughton
Anyone in the UK exploring the great outdoors between March and October, will likely come across our only native snake known to inhabit almost every preserved part of our countryside. With the exceptions of the Highlands, Scilly Isles, and famously, Ireland, grass snakes are found in lowland habitats ranging from parks and gardens to woodlands and wetlands where water plays a significant role for them – 60% of their diet consists of frogs, newts, and fish. However, lizards, insects, small mammals, and chicks are also on their menu, which can drive them to colonise other places whenever aquatic food sources dry up.
Besides being expert swimmers, they’re our largest snake, with females occasionally growing 1.5 metres long! They're also the only UK snake to lay eggs — often in rotting wood, compost, and manure heaps for bio-thermal warmth. As reptiles, heat sources are essential for their reproduction and survival, yet for all their familiarity, they’re elusive and secretive enough for their whereabouts and numbers to remain a mystery. Still, in flower-rich water meadows teaming with tadpoles, full of frogs, else packed with shoals of small fish, you might spot the serpentine movement of an olive-green, beady-eyed eel-like creature slithering between some irises and water reeds, its head above water tasting the air with a flickering forked tongue – or simply chance upon a barred, grey-green snake in the grass, basking in the sun, while out for a casual walk in the woods.
August 2024
Bourne, Lincolnshire
High up, away from the bustle of the streets below, soars a remarkable crow-like bird. Circling above, it suddenly tumbles into a playful swirling dive, dropping close enough to exhibit its diamond-shaped tail and considerable size. After several calls, it’s joined by its mate, and the two go into a synchronised sky dance. Stooping simultaneously downwards, barrel-rolling with talons briefly locked and then separating, only to thrust themselves upwards to randomly repeat the performance six or seven times while calling to one another.
These impressive supersized corvids, weighing 1.13 kg and a 1.2m wingspan, are ravens—making a comeback in SE England after decades of persecution. Between February and April, their spring courtship displays are once again a regular occurrence over the farms, forests, and suburbs of South Lincolnshire.
Ravens are highly intelligent, inquisitive, expressive, resourceful and vocal – creating and mimicking more sounds than any animal on Earth. They share the same diet and sometimes habitat as carrion crows, but being twice as big with a lifespan three times as long, aren’t so allied to their smaller cousins to regard them as anything more than food. Yet these grim opportunists, thieves, spies, and “rascals of the skies” are resolute when choosing a partner and territory since they do so with a ‘til-death-do-us-part commitment to both — a characteristic eerily depicted in Edgar Allen Poe’s classic visitation poem, where in the face of foreboding others are expected to fly from corpses, partners and places, yet “Quoth the Raven – Nevermore.1”
1. From the 10th stanza: "But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only; that one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.” Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
July 2024
Victoria Park, Bow, London
As one of Europe’s most wildlife-invaded countries, the UK is home to hundreds of alien species. Some, like the little owl and brown hare, are more eco-friendly and therefore less problematic—unlike this yellow-bellied slider, which has managed to colonise dozens of canals, ponds and lakes as an unwanted pet.
In the past, over 600,000 terrapins, mostly red-eared, Cumberland, and yellow-bellied sliders, were imported to Britain, with an estimated 4000 of them deliberately released into the wild! Originally from the warmer parts of the Eastern and Central US, our climate is rarely kind to them. Basking begins in spring, but with barely enough sunshine to metabolise calcium and vitamin D, they struggle to harden their shells, hatch from any eggs in temperatures below 24 o C, or store enough fat reserves to hibernate in winter.
Our weather may have hampered their progress but has done little to lessen their appetites. Terrapins are voracious omnivores that can live for forty years, depleting aquatic habitats as they compete with a host of native animals that rely on invertebrates, fish, amphibians, and certain plants for their food. They also pose a human health risk as a potential salmonella reservoir. Hence, their status as aliens is clear—they’re not welcome. As of August 2016, it’s illegal to trade or breed terrapins in the UK. It’s also highly irresponsible to keep them without the proper facilities and care, but above all, utterly criminal to release them into the wild.
June 2024
Roydon Wood, The New Forest, Hampshire
Given their idyllic songs, benign appearance, and skittish behaviour, one might suppose thrushes to be timid, genteel birds with more flight to them than fight. They do take a more aggressive stand in winter to protect hard-to-come-by berry bushes, but if there’s one thrush more capable than most of throwing its weight around to prove a point beyond posturing, it’s the dotted and dapper missel or mistle thrush.
So-called for its supposed liking for mistletoe berries, the mistle thrush is the largest of our thrushes and lives on a seasonal variety of seeds, fruit, and invertebrates. But period-driven food shortages aren’t the only sparks to ignite them into a state of aggression with more weight behind it than a rival might presume. Another name for them is Stormcock, as they’re said to be undaunted by the weather when singing or defending their nests and young against threats as formidable as sparrowhawks, barn owls, and buzzards. As parents, they show tremendous courage by swiftly executing fierce attacks on raiders, as if to "put the missile" into the missel part of their name. From the very tops of trees, a pair will vigorously and mercilessly dive-bomb an adversary with such ferocity that one such incident recorded by 1Cocker and Mabey, resulted in the death of a trespassing jackdaw – a freak accident, perhaps but a blow delivered with enough daring to earn themselves a reputation for being the sort of bird intruders often underestimate to their peril.
1. The Birds Britannica by Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey, where the authors detail how a pair of mistle thrushes defended their nest by “driving away a sparrowhawk and buzzard, knocking a barn owl off its perch and attacking and killing a jackdaw.”
May 2024
Cats are said to have nine lives, but according to the ICUN Red List of Threatened Species, twenty-one members of the lesser cat family are nearly all down to their last one. Amongst them is Britain’s wildcat, which, despite being listed as “of least concern”, is classified as functionally extinct due to widespread interbreeding with feral cats. At first glance, it’s easy to mistake this beguiling solitary hunter for a stray or regular tabby – but a Jasper, Tiddles, or Tibby, it is not.
Before the seventeen hundreds, the wildcat was found all over Britain. But from the widespread practice of gamekeeping, it was purged in earnest throughout England and Wales to live chiefly in the remoteness of the highlands, where the word “Scottish” was later added to its moniker, spawning the nickname Highland Tiger – and much like those outlaw Jacobites of old: a mysterious, elusive, and ill-tempered creature, characterised by a rebellious spirit of independence.
Although all that remains of it in the wild are rampant strands of its DNA, the Scottish wildcat is a distinct variety of the Eurasian wildcat and, therefore, unique. So, it falls to us to preserve its bloodline in the purest form and not allow it to vanish over native soil like a proverbial Scotch mist, which is why this one at the Westcountry Wildlife Photography Centre is part of a captive breeding program that hopefully will someday see our “rarest carnivore” once again roaming the wilds of Britain.
April 2024
Instantly recognisable by their raucous chatter, long tails, and tuxedo-like attire, Eurasian magpies are corvids well-known for their audacity and intelligence. But it’s their acumen, not attitude, that has them living off the leftovers in our towns and cities — a significant contributor to their urban survival, which, in addition to their natural diet of seeds, insects, fledglings, fruit, small mammals, and carrion, has boosted their success across a wide range of habitats in almost every part of the UK.
After centuries of resentment for their nuisance to seed crops, poultry and game bird eggs, magpies have developed an inherent distrust of artefacts, especially those resembling traps and guns. Famous for their cognitive abilities and episodic memories, they can quickly learn to exploit food sources and pass that knowledge on — an admirable quality for any bird with a talent for mimicry and a curiosity for shiny objects, but their tendency to the mob, rob, and steal from others has won them few friends. Hence, a reluctant appreciation for them as predators, scavengers and pest controllers, as with this unwanted opportunist, craftily captured drinking at this impromptu watering hole in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.
Still, their peacock-blue wings and green sheen tail feathers are some of their more attractive features. Colours incongruous to their unpopularity, perhaps, but a blend in their plumage that typifies those mixed feelings we have towards them — a reaction in one sense much like the magpie, that's not so black and white.
March 2024
For male lions, governing a pride means spending most of your waking hours fighting and patrolling miles of territory to protect your resources and offspring from rivals, even amongst your progeny. Yet, despite filial alliances and coalitions between males, these 200 kg family heads hold positions belonging to some of the most battle-scarred big cats in the animal kingdom.*
At age three, male lions are expelled from their pride to complete their rite of passage from cub to king in a nomadic journey that will test their strength, courage, cunning and resilience. Having more bulk and less stamina, they’ll develop their predatory skills as ambush hunters, fight to steal kills and scavenge whilst avoiding territorial roars, until they’re ready to face the challenge of claiming land and lionesses of their own by partnering with fellow outcasts bound by blood or similar goals and interests.
When travelling in a pride, alpha males help with hunting but take the lion’s share of everything regardless – a privilege at the price of their mortality! After routine spells of oestrous copulating followed by almost twenty hours of sleep, it’s back to the ferocity of the front lines, where bouts can be brutal and injuries lethal; an undertaking this captive-bred cat living scar-free on whole sides of horse meat every week may well prefer to yawn at rather than roar against – given the harsh realities* of what it costs as a king to be born free.
*Content Warning: link to scenes of severe animal injury and violence that some may find upsetting.
February 2024
The Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire
Until 1897 it was thought that Britain was home to only five kinds of Paridae1 or true tits. Since they all differed in appearance from one another, it was assumed that identifying each species in the wild presented no great challenge – until it was discovered that one of them had a double by way of a close cousin.
For the keen bird-watcher, spotting a marsh tit in the company of willow tits and vice versa is probably one of the most perplexing and exasperating headaches faced by any British birder. Both species share the same winter and summer diets, and although their habitat preferences are dissimilar, they’re known to coexist where their ranges overlap. Even the more distinguished features like the glossy black cap of the marsh tit can appear as a matt one in fluffy-feathered juveniles, giving the impression of a willow tit, and the tell-tale “pale wing patch” of the willow tit, which is sometimes missing, can create the spitting image of a marsh tit.
To add to their long list of similarities, both species are now in decline. Yet, for all their small and hidden differences, the best way to tell them apart in the field is by their song. “A willow tit has a zee-zurzur-zur call, whereas a marsh tit sounds like pitchou.” Unfortunately, this suspected marsh tit in The Forest of Dean was silent, which, once again, left some doubt to its true identity, thanks to that infuriating family resemblance to its near-identical cousin.
1. Initially, Britain’s five true tits were the great tit, blue tit, coal tit, crested tit, and marsh tit. The willow tit was the last native breeding bird to be recognised here in 1897, bringing the UK Paridae species count to six.
January 2024
In ancient China, when King Chuang-Wang of the Chou dynasty lost his gibbon, he ordered an entire forest to be laid waste to find it. How successful this drastic action was in recovering his favourite pet isn’t clear. But the destruction was to echo a distant warning for many of S.E. Asia’s remarkable forest-dwelling animals like the now-endangered lar gibbon.
Lar Gibbons have the most extensive north-south range of all the gibbons, stretching from Northern Indonesia to Thailand – the territorial limit to their resounding hoots and howls, which sadly, are no longer heard across the Thai border with China, where that ancient edict of King Chuang-Wang appears to have transcended the boundaries of time and place to the rain forests of Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and Myanmar for roads, cattle, agriculture, logging, and palm oil plantations.
To add to their plight, adult lars are poached for their meat, with any surviving babies taken for the illegal pet trade. Hence, many like this one at The Lake District Wildlife Park end up in zoos, spending much of their time sitting on flat surfaces and walking bipedally with their arms raised above their heads for balance. However, in their native environment, they rarely come to the ground – a dream life for those in captivity, but with much of their habitat now gone, where else can these arboreal primates see themselves howling whilst freely brachiating[i] from tree to tree, except within the blissful realms, of la la land.
[i] locomotion accomplished by swinging the arms from one hold to another.
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