Tampa Audubon Society is pleased to share the top images selected by our judges for the 2022 Photography Contest.
General Nature and Wildlife
First Place
Birds, Bolts and Siesta Key. A fantastic nightscape of shorebirds and a thunderstorm in the early morning hours at Siesta Key. ©Ronald Kotinsky
Second Place
Central Florida’s beautiful landscape with saw palmetto and pine trees set against a backdrop of Florida's clouds. Photo taken at Duette Preserve, Manatee County.
©Sandy Townsend
Third Place
Bobcat at Green Cay Wetlands.
©Anthony Goldman
Native Plants
First Place
Florida native, Pale Meadowbeauty, Rhexia mariana, showing the array of male anthers above a single female stigma. Rhexia species are buzz pollinated. No pollen is visible because it is stored in the anthers and a bee has to grasp the anthers and vibrate the wings to get the flower to release the pollen through a tiny pore in the anther tip.
©John Lampkin
Second Place
The flower of the Common Buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis. If you look closely, you’ll see a bee on the top left side of the flower. Buttonbush occurs in swamps, ponds and stream banks in Florida. Buttonbush is a honey plant, and ducks and other water birds and shorebirds consume the seeds.
©Sandy Townsend
Third Place
Jagged Ambush Bug on top of a flower from a Spanish Needles, Bidens alba, plant.
©Tiffani Long
Birds
First Place
These are the last 3 great horned owlets (Bubo virginianus) from Philippe Park in Pinellas County. The owl family (including both parents) were decimated due to secondary poisoning from rat poison.
©Joanne Clement
Second Place
Pine Warbler (Setophaga pinus) resting on a branch, photographed in Valrico.
©Tiffani Long
Third Place
Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) photographed in Lakeland.
©Rona Liu
People’s Choice Award (the overall favorite photo as selected by a vote of TAS members)
Love is in the Air. The photographer, Anita Davis-Crumbley, says she was on a trail at Circle B Bar Reserve taking a picture of a female Barred owl when all the sudden its mate flew in and landed next to her on the branch and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek.
©Anita Davis-Crumbley