Mammal Society Conference and talk

This year, I was delighted to be asked again to judge the Mammal Society Photography Competition and I convinced Mike Dilger (of One Show fame!) to be a fellow judge. There were an amazing array of entries, all depicting our wonderful mammal species and, as ever it was incredibly difficult to narrow them down. Luckily, Mike and I had a similar eye and we agreed on all the shortlisted images. The next stage is really hard though…. getting it down to  winner and a 2nd and 3rd place. The images we shortlisted were all wonderful, showing different sides of mammal life and it was only after much deliberation that we decided on the winners;

1st prize went to Stuart Scott for his wonderful, rather human-like, hare surveying the landscape. Thank you to Opticron who sponsored this prize of a fantastic pair of 10 x 42 binoculars.

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  2nd prize went to Grant Auton for this beautiful shot of a common seal. I love the tranquil feel of this photograph. A big thank you to West Country Wildlife for the donation of the prize.Screen Shot 2014-04-07 at 21.15.17

3rd prize went to Andrian Hindcliffe for this fantastic shot of a stoat. apparently, Adrian saw this stoat drag a rabbit up the drain pipe. He rushed to get his camera and as he did, it appeared at the bottom and peeped out, giving him this great shot! Thank you to Wildlife Extra for the donation of the prize.

 

 

 

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For the under 18’s one image stood out and Mike and I agreed straight away! This beautiful shot of a common seal, bathed in golden light was taken by 17 year old Alex Berryman.  Thank you to Bushnell for sponsoring the prize of a NatureView HD Max!

Screen Shot 2014-04-07 at 21.15.402nd prize in the under 18s went to this rather cheeky shot of a red squirrel taken by Samuel Bayliss. A big thank you to Ark Wildlife who donated this rather apt prize of a Squirrel Lover’s pack!

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I was invited to give a talk at the evening event on Friday and also to award the prizes. This was at the beginning of a weekend of events at Aston University as part of the mammal Society’s 60th Anniversary. It was great to see all the photos on display and to give a talk to such an interested audience! Also, great to meet three of the winners; Stuart, Adrian and Alex all made it to the event to be awarded with their prizes. Some photos from The Mammal Society should be winging their way to me soon to add to this blog post, but until then, here are a couple I took from the evening. Well done to all involved.

The evening was rounded off by a most interesting… and eye-opening talk by Rosie Woodroffe who talked about the science behind the badger cull.. I wish all members of the public… and more importantly, politicians. would actually listen to experts like this.

A great evening and thank you to The Mammal Society for inviting me.

Category : Mammal Society, mammal society competition