A STOURBRIDGE photographer is among snappers whose striking images of Worcestershire wildlife are to be featured in a popular charity calendar.

Worcestershire Wildlife Trust runs a photography competition each year to celebrate the wonders of the county’s gardens, greenspaces, towns and countryside.

Photographers are invited to enter images to win the chance to be featured in the charity’s fundraising calendar.

Competition organiser Wendy Carter said: “This year we had almost 300 images entered by 50 photographers and competition was fierce. However, we’re so pleased to see that we’ve got a wonderful calendar full of fantastic images that will look great in people’s homes and the sales of which will help our conservation work right across the county.”

This year's entrants included David Anderson from Stourbridge, whose photograph of an elusive Cetti’s warbler at Upton Warren Wetland Reserve, Worcestershire, has been selected as the March image.

Mr Anderson said: “I’ve had glimpses of the Cetti’s on several occasions in the same area but never managed to photograph it.

"Then one day for some reason it was showing well and I managed to take a few photos of it. Perseverance pays off, I guess.”

All winning images feature as A4 pages in the Trust’s 2021 calendar, which also features 24 further runners-up photos as smaller inserts.

The overall winner, whose photograph features on the front cover of the calendar, was Richard Clifford of Bromsgrove.

Richard’s pearl-bordered fritillary, taken in the Wyre Forest, beat off strong competition from three other images in a public vote run across the Trust’s social media channels.

Wendy said: "This year’s winning images were taken in gardens, on our nature reserves and whilst people were on walks in their local areas – nature is there for us all to discover and enjoy.

“We always have good numbers of photos of wildlife taken in people’s gardens and we expect that, due to this year’s lockdown restrictions, this will boom next year so we’d like to take the chance to encourage everyone to look closer at the wild space on their doorstep to see what they can find."

Entries for the 2022 calendar will open later this year.

This year's calendar (priced £7) is available to buy from the Trust’s online shop - worcswildlifetrust.co.uk/shop.

All proceeds directly benefit the Trust’s work to protect Worcestershire’s wildlife and wild places.

Photographs featured in the calendar can be viewed in the charity’s Flickr photostream at www.flickr.com/photos/worcestershirewildlifetrust.