BWC Photo Comp; "Animal Portraits" Short List

"Animal Portraits" was the most entered category of the competition, and the quality of the photos were simply amazing! It was great to see not only "our" animals in here, but also some of our wild residents such as our herons, voles and even invertebrates. Unsurprisingly the most popular animal for this category was the fox, maybe a little surprisingly the most popular fox was Frodo, not Flo... keeping up his reputation of arguably the most photographed fox in the world!

Coming up with a short list of only ten images (half that of last years) was no easy task, and so many great photos had to miss out, but below are the final ten for the running.

"Animal Portrait" Short List for BWC Photo Comp 2012

"Cats Eyes" - Martin Images - submitted via flickr

"Grass Snake" - Dee Maddams - submitted via email

 "Red Squirrel" - Ajb2003 - submitted via flickr

 "Otter" - Furtographerphil - submitted via flickr

 "Harvest Mouse" - Ian Lewry - submitted via email

 "Will it be dark soon?" - Malcom Biles - submitted via flickr

"Who's be a rabbit" - Martin Images - submitted via email

 "Polecats" - Wendy Salisbury - submitted via email

 "A cunning disguise" - Samantha Vaughan - submitted via flickr

"Water Voles" - Ray Darvis - submitted via email

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone who reads this blog, from myself and all the keepers a the British Wildlife Centre!

Thank you all so much for your support of the Centre and the blog, and for all your kind comments and feedback throughout the year. This blog has grown incredibly over the past year to where we are now getting nearly 200 independent hits a day increasing to nearly 400 hits when there has been a post, brilliant!

One more post later this week on the photo competition, then we are all done for 2012, so see you in the new year!

BWC Photo Comp; "Animals in their Habitat" Short List

And so, the last two categories left to announce in the competition are the most popular, with nearly half of the total number of photographs submitted in to one of these. "Animals in their Habitat" and "Animal Portraits"

Today we are announcing the ten finalists for the "Animals in their Habitat" section. Once again, the overall standard was fantastic and caused some discussion between the judges, but below are the short listed images.

"Animals in their Habitat" Short List for BWC Photo Comp 2012

 "Otter" - Tara McNamee - submitted via email

 "This fishing is hard work" - Casamacca - submitted via flickr

 "Stoat" - Evilturtleracing - submitted via flickr

 "Harvest Mouse" - Linda K - submitted via email

 "Chilled Fox" - Mikepeos - submitted via flickr

 "Frogs" - Paul Reader - submitted via email

 "Badger" - Peter Trimming - submitted via flickr

 "Frog" - Steve Rother - submitted via flickr

 "Polecat" - Susan Addicott - submitted via email

"Fox" - Wendy Salisbury - submitted via email

Grace and Tamar on Springwatch

A few weeks back you may remember that I mentioned that two of our otters were being filmed by Springwatch? Well, at the time I thought it was for part of their Winterwatch which they are doing this year, but in fact it was for a "Springwatch special" an hour long program all about otters!

Chris Packham was here filming a few different bits and links, and for part of it he donned his waders and went out into the pond with two of our otters, Grace and Tamar.

This program is to be aired tomorrow night (Thursday 20th Dec), at 8pm on BBC 2. Do make sure you give it a watch to see our two otters moment in the limelight. Our otters have been filmed many times before, but I believe this is Grace and Tamars first time on the small screen, and you know what... they took to it like "otters to water", they were "otterly" brilliant, they were.... OK, I'll leave it there.

On a side note, how many times have you seen a news item or tv listing on a program about British otters and they use a photo of Asian short-clawed otters... Amazing isn't it. I have seen a few paper listings for this program, over half with asc otters as the photo, and even the news items we did a year ago on their comeback had the BBC with a large picture of two asc otters behind the desk, not European otters!

Anyway, rant over, and back to photo comp short lists on Friday.

BWC Photo Comp; "Animals in Motion" Short List

Now it is time to show off the short listed entries for the most entered three categories. Starting today with the 10 finalists for our "Animals in Motion". Probably unsurprisingly, it was our owls and otters that featured most in this section.

This was one of my favourite categories, and truly had some stunning images entered, it took us a long time to narrow it down to the ten photographs below... Enjoy!

"Animals in Motion" Short List for the BWC Photo Comp, 2012

 "Barn Owl" - G.Rae - submitted via email

 "Scurrying Sciurus" - Tara McNamee - submitted via email

 "Red Squirrel" - Andrew Bertram - submitted via flickr

 "Otters Playing" - Brian Stoddart - submitted via email

 "Heron Leaving It's Nest" - Ray Vardill - submitted via email

 "Leaping like Bonetti" - Stan Maddams - submitted via email

 "Otter" - Tabbiekat - submitted via email

 "Otter" - Tenpinphil - submitted via flickr

"Tawny" - Wendy Salisbury - submitted via email

"Splashdown" - Ian Rentoul - submitted via flickr

BWC Photo Comp; "Animals and their Keepers" Short List

The next finalists to show off are from the "Animals and their Keepers" category. Good luck to all the short listed photographers below.

"Animals and their Keepers" Short list for BWC Photo Comp, 2012

 "Florence and Izzy" - Gordon Rae - submitted via email

 "Flo the Fox" - Amanda Hawes - submitted via email

 "Katie and Squirrels" - Barbara Korsarska - submitted via email

 "Love Ya xx" - Casamacca - submitted via flickr

 "Rich and Barn Owl" - Heather Tiso - submitted via flickr

 "Archimedes and Matt" - Karen Jones - submitted via flickr

 "Richard and Squirrel" - Ken & Rose - submitted via flickr

 "Hedgehog" - Lilafeld - submitted via flickr

 "Katie and Ellis" - Peter Trimming - submitted via flickr

"Making sure he is behaving" - Steffi Cousins - submitted via email

BWC Photo Comp; "FAUNA FUN" Shortlist

Next up is the short list for our "Fauna Fun" category. This was a new category for 2012, and provided us with much fun whilst sorting through the various images.  Perhaps unsurprisingly our squirrels were the most popular animal for this category, with around half of the submitted photos being of them.

Many didn't have the required title/caption for this category, but still there were plenty to choose from to come up with the final 10 images below...

"Fauna Fun" Shortlist for BWC Photo Comp, 2012

"Honest, the one that got away was this big!" - DunjenS - submitted via flickr

 "Cold Feet" - Mark Holme - submitted via email

 "Red squirrels ride invisible motorbikes" - Andrew Bertram - submitted via flickr

 "I can give you another ten seconds" - Malcom Biles - submitted via flickr

 "Does my bum look big in this?" - Flowersnow - submitted via flickr

 "Salmon fillet, this big, please!" - Peter Trimming - submitted via flickr

 "I was first, No I was first, No I was first..." - Layzee66 - submitted via flickr

 "Did you get a good shot of me?" - Matt Caldwell - submitted via email

 "Close enough?" - Peter Trimming - submitted via flickr

"Out foxed" - Samantha Jarret - submitted via email