The Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the year competition 2009 attracted 43,000 pictures from 92 countries. Of these 700 reached the finals.
Beach Picnic (featured left) reached the final round. The Aran Islands are an oblique line of three inhabited islands of solid rock forming a broken continuation of the limestone pavements of the Burren and guarding the entrance to Galway Bay. Nature has made few locations wilder. The islands with their rich fishing waters, beaches,cliffs, lakes and streams are home to a whole range of bird life. The Rock Pipit ( Anthus spinoletta) occupies a coastal habitat especially on rocky shores of the islands This shot was taken at Corruch on a stoney northern shore of Inishmore , the largest of the Aran Islands on a rare, warm, sunny day on 10th March, 2009 at 13.13hours. I had spent the morning observing and photographing the Grey Seals. The bird life was numerous and varied both on and above the shore line. However, as the day became warmer, my attention was drawn to the smallest bird feasting on the now abundant insect activity on the seaweed at the high tide line. It would have been easy to miss the frenzied activity of the Rock Pipit as she was so well camouflaged against the seaweed but by getting low to the ground I could capture the scene. I had to shoot at a fast shutter speed to freeze the flight of the flies and catch the moment the Rock Pipit had snatched one from the air.
Another 6 of the images reached semi-final stage of the 2009
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