Waterlife photo competition

Every year we run a photo competition through our membership magazine, Waterlife. The prize for the best overall wetland photograph is a pair of Swarovski binoculars.

This year the prize went to Yvonne Carrington, with her spectacular action shot Lucky Escape.

For the second year running we also had a Young People’s category. The prize this year went to Mia Totten, aged 13, for her stunning picture Blue Damselfly. She was presented with a pair of VIKING binoculars.

Scroll down to view these winning images and more from our short-list. If you're on your phone, try turning it on its side to allow for a bigger image size.

We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who entered. The standard was very high and the judges were impressed by the quality and diversity of the photographs they were asked to judge.

Winner: Yvonne Carrington

Image title: Lucky escape
Captured at: WWT Arundel

"This image was taken at 'Pelican Cove', WWT Arundel on 10th August 2021. It shows a herring gull with a tufted duck ducking in its mouth being pursued by an angry parent. The capture happened very quickly as I was watching the pelicans swimming. Suddenly the gull swooped onto the water and grabbed one of the ducklings swimming by its mother. Thankfully there is a happy ending to the story. The angry mother bravely fought the gull who surrendered the duckling quickly and it swam away. The image shows the duckling in the process of falling back into the water.

After this shot the following happened, which I also managed to capture. Very quickly the parent was joined by a second female tufted duck who participated in attacking the gull's chest. Feathers flying everywhere, the gull tried to fly off with the ducks still attached but was pulled under the water. Eventually they let go and the gull looking like it had had enough, flew away to the triumphant expression on the ducks' faces!

Luckily I had my shutter speed set to 1000/s so I was able to capture the action immediately".

Main runner up: Mike Doyle

Image title: Because I'm worth it
Captured at: WWT Arundel

"This image was taken at the WWT Arundel on 26 September 2021 in the Coastal Creek Aviary. The scaley-sided merganser was taking a bath and I really wanted to get a good shot as the flowing crest just looked like a well known hair conditioner advert, hence the title. The main obstacle was getting enough shutter speed to freeze the action and get good water splash quality. The bird though didn’t want to cooperate and was very unpredictable in its movements, patience was the key as was getting low down so the subject was at eye level it wouldn’t have worked if I was looking down on to the bird in question! As soon as I managed to get an image that I was happy with, bath time was over and the merganser turned away and sat on a rock for a well earned rest".

Runner up: Jonathan Cuttle
Image title: Three dancers
Captured at: WWT Slimbridge

"The image shows three black-tailed godwits flapping their wings after roosting for some time. They didn't look very interesting while they were roosting, so I waited until they moved and flapped their wings to get a more dynamic image. This was taken on a Canon R5 mirrorless full frame camera with a 100-500mm f7.1 Canon L series lens. It was taken at WWT Slimbridge from the Rushy hide next to the Peng Observatory which is one of my favourite hides there. I edited the image using Lightroom only".

Runner up: Bill Pickard
Image title: Autumn migration
Captured at: WWT Martin Mere

"I took this photo from the United Utilities Hide at WWT Martin Mere from where I had been watching numerous flocks of greylag geese come and go. It was late morning in mid November and I realised that the sun was in the perfect position behind me to capture the geese flying past the Kingfisher hide. Unfortunately, most flocks were flying in a different direction. However, after waiting for some considerable time, I was really luck to spot this particular flock of geese flying in the exact direction that I had been hoping for, enabling me to capture the birds against this beautifully lit backdrop of autumn colours. I believe it really captures the essence of the Mere at this time of year".

Runner up: Ben Wooton
Image title: The eyes have it
Captured at: WWT Arundel

"This shot was taken in WWT Arundel, on this day the spectacled eiders were being particularly shy. I had to wait 3 or 4 hours for them to come within photo distance. The meaning behind this caption and image is - Climate change is real, do we want to lose the diversity of nature?"

Runner up: Alun Gee
Image title: Squabbling avocets
Captured at: WWT Slimbridge

"These two avocets caught my attention as I scanned the birds on Slimbridge's South Lake. They were having some form of tussle, with one bird chasing and pecking the other repeatedly. At the moment this image was taken, the aggressor lunged at the other bird but had to jump over it as its attempted target braked suddenly. I had set my camera to its maximum continuous shooting rate to ensure I caught the action at the best moment."

Young people

Last year we ran this category for the first time. It was such as success that we’ve made it a permanent part of our member’s photography competition. Yet again we’ve been so impressed by the standard of entries and we look forward to seeing more from our young wildlife photographers.