There are two reasons why CSERC holds a Wildlife Photo Contest in the midst of all our normal work doing water quality sampling, wildlife surveys, school programs, and so many other efforts. First, when area newspapers feature the winning photos, the pictures help to raise public interest about wildlife of our region.
A second key reason for the photo contest is that it enables CSERC to use many of the impressive pictures in our slide show programs that we present to thousands of youth at schools in the Central Valley and across the foothills of the region.
At times in a multi-purpose room crammed full of students, there will be a loud collective gasp of “oooohhh!” when a picture shown on the screen is especially compelling or eye-catching.
In this year’s Young Photographers category of the photo contest, Natalie Hawks of Sonora received the first place prize with her photo of the goldfinch (above). Dillon Hotchkiss (also of Sonora) took the photo of the egret, at right, with a background of rippling water. His photo was awarded honorable mention. Inside this newsletter, pages 4 and 5 feature the top winning photos in the adult category.
Some of you hopefully saw our Top 50 wildlife photos after you followed a link provided in our March e-newsletter. For the rest of you, this may be your first glimpses of the prize-winning photos in our 2018 Wildlife Photo contest.
Tom Knudson of Truckee won first prize with his photo of a mountain bluebird family (with the male bluebird looking less than excited about needing to feed five hungry young).
Second place went to Dave Douglass of Groveland for his exceptionally crisp photo of this hummingbird.
As our CSERC staff carefully reviewed all of the photo entries, we ended up feeling that two photos were both deserving of the third place prize. We reluctantly agreed to award a prize to both, and then we were surprised to discover that both of the photos had been taken by Jamie Lee Akins of Twain Harte. So her pictures of the chickaree squirrel and the harlequin bug amidst water droplets share third place.
