As a postscript to the article and comments posted on ‘On Location in Cumbria: 3‘ from a few weeks back it was interesting to witness a female Mallard being raped at Llanelli today. I was running the ‘Introduction to Bird Photography’ course at the WWT and was with some of the folk, who were  attending, when the incident occurred. It sounds, from my account here, that it was in some way criminal and when Alan, a friend who has been with me on a good number of courses, said on his return to the hide, “Have the police come for the Mallards yet!”, it further emphasized our tendancy towards anthropomorphism. The attack went on for five minutes or so and was fascinating, whilst a little disturbing in a curious way. It’s a tough life, with little compromise in the natural world, and things ‘go on’ but we remain human with our own values that are at times applied, incorrectly, to this other world we so keenly observe.

Caerphilly CCBC have asked me to run a series of seasonal walks which we are calling ‘Landscape and Wildlife Walks with a Camera’  These walks are all free and offer a chance to explore the Upper Sirhowy Valley. It is an area I’ve photographed extensively through various commissions over the last few years and one I have come to love.

There are a couple of fields locally that are, at present, absolutely stunning and with the weather as its been lately it was too good an opportunity to let go.

I’ve always said that editing and selection is the hardest part of photography, particularly with your own images and already I’ve changed a couple of the images for the competition!

Well I’ve just submitted my images for this competition – as below – So who knows… If you don’t enter you can’t win! You can submit three images per category and as many categories as you like.