The River Lee, Ballincollig. ‘Lovely sense of place and time of year’. Overall winner (under 18) of the World Wetlands Day Photo Competition. Photo taken by Lucy Gallagher.
Whooper Swans rising from Kilcolman Fen. ’Very well captured. Evocative. I can hear them calling’. The overall winner (over 18) of the World Wetlands Day photo competition. Photo taken by James McGrath.
Award-winning wildlife camera man Colin Stafford-Johnson kindly agreed to select the overall winners of the World Wetlands Day Photo Competition. The WWD photo competition was organised by the IRWC and Wetlands Surveys Ireland to mark 50 years since the signing of the Ramsar Convention. The competition which ran over four months in 2021 had a great response and monthly winners were posted on the IRWC website. The winners will each receive a framed copy of their photo and an OPW Family Heritage Card.
The overall winner of the under 18 category was Lucy Gallagher from Cork. Colin Stafford -Johnson commented that this photo gave a ‘Lovely sense of place and time of year’
The overall winner of the over 18 category was James McGrath, also from Cork . Colin Stafford -Johnson commented that the Whooper Swans were, ’Very well captured. Evocative. I can hear them calling’.
Fine praise indeed for two photos which represent Ireland’s wonderful, varied, and vital wetlands.
Thanks to Colin Stafford-Johnson for judging the overall competition winners, to members of the IRWC (Niamh Fitzgerald of BirdWatch Ireland, Tadgh O’Mahony of the EPA, Mary Roache of Teagasc) and to Patrick Crushell of Wetland Surveys Ireland for judging the monthly competition winners. Thanks to the National Biodiversity Data Centre for their monthly prizes of Identification Swatch Packs and to the OPW for the overall winner prize of a Family Heritage Card.