PotM Calendar
The Photo of the Month (see gallery) is a year round calendar of selected nature images and stories with contributions from visitors, fellow photographers and friends.
When it comes to nature photography, it's not only those fascinating tales of high adventure that often accompany talent and skill for a fabulous result. If a picture is truly worth more than a thousand words then a well-timed shot, or a well framed one, can say just as much about you as a photographer too! So if you'd like to showcase one of your pictures here, free, for one calendar month with a short story on how you managed to come by it, then this page is for you.
December 2021
Epping Forest, Walthamstow, London
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Every picture tells a story, and every photographer has a story to tell. Care to share?
With twelve places left for 2022, the PotM Calendar is now closed until December 18th.
To learn more about posting news, comments and events here under a PotM agreement, see our Terms of Use page where you can submit your photo (with story) during the last two weeks of every month.
I was walking alongside one of the ponds in Lea Valley Park
With twelve places left for 2022, the PotM Calendar is now closed until December 18th.
To learn more about posting news, comments and events here under a PotM agreement, see our Terms of Use page where you can submit your photo (with story) during the last two weeks of every month.
Well-Spotted by by Peter Flectcher
As I was walking to some local shops near the Galliards Estate, I heard a chick calling from one of the lime trees by Jubilee Parl. At first, I looked and looked...
With twelve places left for 2022, the PotM Calendar is now closed until December 18th.
Special annoucements or simple hellos. Place your message, link, advert or invite here as part of your PotM agreement.
The Adventures of the Speckled Bush
by Roger Cox
Gone are the days when agricultural fields were buzzing and crawling with insects. Nowadays, farmland has to be is set aside to attract them, but even set-asides are no haven from dispersing clouds of frequently used pesticides! So, it's not uncommon to find several insect species we still associate with greener pastures, inhabiting more urban ones like this speckled bush cricket.
Crickets have some of the longest antennae of the insect world, as much as twice their body length! Though not entirely in the case of the females who possess a long sabre-like ovipositor.
As they're generally quiet throughout the day, one tends to find them in more unusual resting places: fences, walls, sidewalks, car windscreens, window ledges etc. Only at dusk do they become active, where on warm summer nights, males stridulate or chirp by rubbing their wings to attract a mate – after which, eggs are laid under bark or in grass stems where they're left to hatch the following spring.
Of the ten British crickets, only five can fly, and although most are omnivorous, the speckled bush is strictly vegetarian, feeding on flowers, leaves and various plants. Granted, their bright green coats, evenly covered in tiny black spots, gives them a certain aura on yellow flora. But it was their flightless flight from those toxic green fields of the countryside to places like the one pictured in this city oasis that gives them an exotic out-of-place charm.