PotM Calendar
The Photo of the Month (see gallery) is a year round calendar of selected nature images and stories with contributions from visitors, friends and fellow photographers.
When it comes to nature photography, it's not only those exciting 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.
October 2022
Bradgate Park, Leicestershire
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Every picture tells a story, and every photographer has a story to tell. Care to share?
With two places left for 2022, the PotM Calendar is now closed until October 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 two places left for 2022, the PotM Calendar is now closed until October 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 two places left for 2022, the PotM Calendar is now closed until October 18th.
Special annoucements or simple hellos. Place your message, link, advert or invite here as part of your PotM agreement.
As Summer turns to Autumn, red deer come into season. So begins that long-awaited event of the year for stags in their prime – the rut, a gruelling contest of strength and determination for the toughest and strongest amongst them to acquire exclusive breeding rights to as many hinds as possible.
The benefit of these brutal tournaments goes to the species as a whole. For in spring, fawns are born, sired by the finest of the fittest, whose genes keep at bay any number of random weaklings that could threaten the health and vitality of the next generation.
Delivering offspring between May and June allows for ample food and cover whilst belonging to a herd bolsters their protection, but safety in numbers isn’t the only problem hinds need to figure out. Because females stay with their mothers for life, and males leave before their first year, hinds are able to control the birth ratio of females to males. Typically, this is 2:1 since stags rarely survive ruts beyond twelve years compared to a hind’s lifespan of twenty or more. Therefore when times are hard, hinds produce more males, which leave within a year, thus reducing pressure on food sources.
Economising on care by producing more males to struggle elsewhere sounds calculating and callous. But such spartan measures are necessary to ensure the future of the herd with a minimal loss of life – a bargain for the price of healthy offspring to come.