We ran the Winter Wildlife Photography competition again this year covering the month of February in keeping with our moving schedule. Little did I anticipate that it might be one of the wettest months so far in 2026!
But people persevered and we had a lovely set of images to judge, this year our guest judge was Georgina Fauconier, the Biodiversity Officer for Kingston Upon Thames.
This year we had 10 people taking part, each entering up to 3 photos, and as we did last year, each image was judged independently of any other entries made by the individual.
We were really impressed with all of the photos submitted, many had a lovely subject or story expressed in the image. Sometimes it was only a slight matter of a key element being slightly out of focus, or items not cropped out that competed for the focus; that allowed other images to take the pole position.
I have added everyone's images further down in alphabetical order, but I firstly wanted to share the 5 main images that were really strong contenders this year. All of these were commended for a good overall composition, with many drawing the viewer in through the image.
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| Common Hazel Catkins at Kingston Hill by Priya. |
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| Sunlit Holly at Kingston Hill by Mel. |
But there could only be two winners, and the two images that captured our interest the most were the following:
Starting with the second place winning image. This year we have this lovely image of Daffodils (a very popular subject in this year’s entries) by Mel. We liked the unusual view and composition which took us as the viewer through the image and we also liked the use of the shadow to really make the brighter colours really stand out.
And finally in first place, with their lovely image of a Ladybird on Spurge from Kingston Hill, is Tom. We loved the composition, and the way Tom used the natural light hitting the spurge to create a lovely defuse colourway. One that draws the eye deeper into the image, to the 7-spotted Ladybird at the heart of the photograph..
I wanted to thank everyone who has taken the time to take part this year. I this been wonderful seeing all of the images of the wildlife that people have noticed around them. This is the last of the Winter based photo competitions in the series as next year we start with the first of the Spring Wildlife Photo Competitions, where only images taken on our sites in March 2027 will be eligible. Hopefully a drier month will entice people outside to do a bit of wildlife spotting.
The 2026 entries in Alphabetical order, hopefully you should be able to click on each to see a bigger image:
I. Jennings:
J. Malik
K. Horswill
M. Stanton
N. Lax
P. Lyall
V. Ridgeway
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