Capturing Ecology 2021 – Overall Winner: Rebecca Nason of Shetland Seabird Tours

Capturing Ecology 2021

Overall Winning Image by Rebecca Nason of Shetland Seabird Tours – The Noss Boat

The winning images and an additional eight highly commended images, taken by international ecologists and students, celebrate the diversity of ecology, capturing flora and fauna from across the planet. Subjects range from a blood red snail feeding on dead man’s fingers (a fungus found in the rainforests of India) to a rare sighting of the ‘fairy of the Valencian forests’, a recently discovered cave-dwelling bug in Spain.

The winning images from this year’s will be displayed in our immersive virtual exhibition, which is sponsored by Wiley.

Overall winner: Kumlien’s Gull and Friends, Rebecca Nason.

Overall winner: Kumlien’s Gull & Friends, Rebecca Nason/ShetlandSeabird Tours:

On her winning image, Rebecca Nason – an ecologist and photographer living in Britain’s most northerly harbour town of Lerwick, Shetland – said: “In April 2021, I came across a scarce Kumlien’s Gull as I fed bread to a growing number of Herring Gull sheltering from a Spring storm. A beautiful gull, these birds breed in the Arctic regions of Canada & winter from Labrador west across the Great Lakes.

“When the Kumlien’s gull approached to a good distance to allow for closer full frame shots. I started photographing the eye detail, noting a gorgeous granite coloured iris with dark speckled plumage detail around the eye. It was only when I got home I realised that the speckled patterns were in fact lice clustered around the eye, the Kumlien’s Gull hadn’t travelled alone!

“I am thrilled to win such a prestigious photography competition after entering for the first time this year. I have had a very symbiotic relationship between ecology work & bird photography in my career, so for both to come together in this way to win a competition with a gull image taken on my local patch, is just the icing on the cake.”

THE SHETLAND TIMES: Pg 2: Friday 29th October 2021

MORE LINKS:

BBC NEWS – ‘CAPTURING ECOLOGY’ PHOTOGRAPHY WINNER 2021

DIGITAL CAMERA WORLD NEWS 

SCIENCE FOCUS NEWS

RARE BIRD ALERT – CAPTURING ECOLOGY WINNER