AN amateur photographer's "lucky" shot of a pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly in the Wyre Forest has made it on the front cover of Worcestershire Wildlife Trust's annual calendar.

From harvest mice to hoverflies and waxwings to spider webs, 12 photographers from across Worcestershire are celebrating after being chosen as winners in the popular charity wildlife calendar.

This year's overall winner is Richard Clifford, from Bromsgrove, whose photograph taken while out walking in the Wyre Forest has been printed on the calendar's front cover.

Richard’s butterfly snap beat off strong competition from three other images in a public vote run across the trust’s social media channels.

Richard said “I am absolutely amazed and thrilled to be announced as the overall winner of this great competition.

“The news of being a finalist was praise enough but being voted the overall winner has blown me away. Thank you to anyone and everyone that voted for my picture.

“I class myself as an over enthusiastic amateur photographer and, as other similar photographers will understand, my biggest critic is myself. That’s why a big part of this success is down to those other photographers.

“I am lucky to have met so many people that I am now happy to call good friends, either in the field where we chat or on various social media platforms where we help and encourage each other wherever we can - some of these I may never meet but without all of them, I may not have achieved this and I’d like to thank them all - you know who you are.

“This particular shot was taken in the Wyre Forest where I was out walking with my wife Jill.

"We literally stumbled over this pearl-bordered fritillary and luckily it stayed put for quite some time, enabling me to take my time composing the shot. Some days you just get lucky, I guess.

“Finally, thank you to Worcestershire Wildlife Trust for providing us with the chance to showcase our work. Our wildlife is in safe hands with you.”

Wendy Carter, organiser of the competition, said: “From gardens to nature reserves and in both our urban and rural spaces, we have some wonderful wildlife and wild places.

“We’ve also got some very talented photographers who make life difficult for our judges.

“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.”

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 calendar is available to buy from the trust’s online shop and costs £7. Visit worcswildlifetrust.co.uk/shop. All proceeds directly benefit the trust’s work to protect Worcestershire’s wildlife and wild places.

Entries for the 2022 calendar will open later this year.