Incredible capture of seagull’s eye wins 2021 British Ecological Society photo contest

British Ecological Society has announced the winners of its photography contest, “Capturing Ecology.” A gorgeous close-up of a Kumlien’s Gull’s eye has won this year’s contest, and you may notice that it has speckled markings that aren’t quite ordinary. It turns out that the gull wasn’t flying solo, and his guests around the eye brought Rebecca Nason the first prize.

Rebecca titled her photo Kumlien’s Gull & Friends. This gorgeous eye and the unique speckles around it make the photo stunning enough, but what are these little spots? Well, they’re actually lice.

“I started photographing the eye detail, noting a gorgeous granite colored iris with dark speckled plumage detail around the eye,” Rebecca explains. “It was only when I got home I realized that the speckled patterns were in fact lice clustered around the eye, the Kumlien’s Gull hadn’t traveled alone!”

For her unique image, Rebecca has been awarded the Overall Winner, but this contest brings us some more stunning photos. There’s a blood-red snail feeding on dead man’s fingers (the fungus, not actual fingers), and this is one of the photos that I also liked quite a lot. You’ll see plenty of unique and rare animals, plans, and moments from nature.

The contest recognizes winners in six categories, each also including Student photographers. There are also eight highly commended images and the winner among them, so we have even more to admire and enjoy. We bring you the rest of the winning and highly commended photos below, and you can also see them at BES’s virtual exhibition.