No sting in the tail as jellyfish scoops top award
The photograph, taken by Richard Shucksmith from Shetland, was snapped at Sula Sgeir, which means Gannet Rock, a remote island 66km north of Lewis that is home to a wide array of marine life.
Greg Armfield, photography and film manager at wildlife charity WWF, described the shot as “fantastic”.
He said it was “a truly beautiful shot of a jellyfish that perfectly captures its iridescent colours and magical qualities; all the more remarkable that it exists in UK waters.”
The competition awards a top prize to the overall winner and also £1,000 (€1,145) of prizes from Canon for 10 categories, ranging from animal portraits and behaviour to landscapes, urban wildlife and the British seasons.
Category winners this year included a photograph by Graham Eaton from the Wirral, Merseyside, of Llyn Idwal, a lake in Snowdonia, Wales, which captures the scene above and below water, and won the “living landscapes” prize.
Starlings, fallow deer, a grey heron which appears to walk on water, a hare pictured on a frosty morning, a wasp on blackberries, scorpion flies and summer insects all feature among the category-winning pictures.
The winners of the young British wildlife photographers competition were Oliver Wilks, aged 16, from West Sussex, for his picture of a fox yawning, and eight-year-old Walter Lovell from Painswick, Gloucestershire for a shot of a frog and frogspawn.
The wildlife on video category was won by Mark Sisson who filmed a great crested grebe family.
Competition judge Paul Wilkinson, head of living landscapes at the Wildlife Trusts, said: “We are delighted to see how many people from around the UK were inspired by the competition to explore nature in their local area.
“This competition is a special opportunity to give the natural world that surrounds us the recognition and reverence it deserves.”
* www.bwpawards.co.uk
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