To encourage you to go out and make the most of the Island’s natural assets, the JEP is running Nature Watch, a monthly photographic competition and online picture gallery.
Each month we will print your best nature pictures and also share them here on our website. And one winning photographer will receive a printed canvas of their image, courtesy of Framing Workshop.
Use the form below to upload your best pictures.
This month’s theme: Grasslands and dunes
NATURE really turns up the volume in May, especially in the Island’s open grasslands and sand dunes.
Think of either of these habitats and our minds immediately zoom in on Les Mielles in St Ouen’s Bay with its extensive dunes to the south and the open grasslands to the north.
On a much smaller scale, yet no less naturally attractive, are the similar landscapes alongside the golf course at Grouville.
With their combined profusion of plants, animals and insects, a sunny day should guarantee some wild and intimate photographs.
May is, after all, the time of year when green lizards start to show their true colours and wild orchids push hard to honour the colour purple.
Grasslands and dunes are also a magnet for many insects.
Butterflies, grasshoppers and shiny coloured beetles are all now at their most competitive and frequently seen making friends with different species of newly flowering grassland plants.
Where there’s open grassland and bramble thickets, it’s worth looking out for bird-life; kestrels, linnets, stonechats, meadow pipits and hedge sparrows love these kinds of habitats.
May is sometimes full of surprises so hopefully, a few of the natural ones will considerately sit before your camera.
As always, the best of natural good luck.
Mike Stentiford
