The 2026 photo competition again produced some superb pictures, even though entry numbers were down on the last few years. Of the 101 entries, 86 were from the main section, 10 from young photographers but disappointingly only five from ‘Birds & People’. Maybe we didn’t explain what sorts of pictures we were looking for there, or maybe our photographers aren’t interested in the idea.

As usual, we had several photos of Kingfishers, Red Kites, Robins, Stonechats, Tawny Owls, Peregrines and Puffins, with Puffin, Tawny Owl and Red Kite featuring in the winners in the 2027 calendar. Two Welsh rarities featured for the first time: the Western Reef Egret that spent a considerable amount of time in west Wales, and a Woodchat Shrike.

The overall winner of the Main section was Phoebe Brown’s evocative portrait of a Grey Heron and second prize went to Amy Compton for her beautiful ‘Puffin in the petals’ and along with her winner, Phoebe Brown captured third prize with her lovely cygnets nestling in their mother’s neck. An all-female cast of Main section winners was supplemented by Karen Burns, who won her second First Prize with those Aberystwyth pier Starlings, this time for Birds & People. There were three excellent prize winners in the Young Photographers section: First Prize went to Ieuan Jones for his ground level shot of a Woodcock (how on earth did he get that photo?), second prize went to Callum Gray for his humorous ‘How to train your Cuckoo’ and third prize went to ‘Curiosity’: one of Anwen Whitehead’s studies of a young Tawny Owl emerging from its nest.

Beyond the prizewinners there were six photos that were Highly Commended and lots of very good pictures that didn’t even make the shortlists, including this lovely mirror image of a Wren which is the featured image for this post. Some others

of these may feature in the Winter newsletter, but meanwhile all the prize winners and highly commended are featured in the gallery below.