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 worth a thousand words, then a well-timed shot, or well-framed one, can say 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 or personal account, then this page is for you.
Magpie by Roger Cox
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 much like the magpie that’s not so black and white.
Special announcements or simple hellos. Place your message, link, advert or invitation here as part of your PotM agreement. With eight places left for 2024, the PotM Calendar is now closed until April 17th. 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 your story) during the last two weeks of every month.
