The Pollinator Project has announced the second winner of the Barry Wells Award for Young Photographers.
Florence Brookes’ photo of a Speckled Wood butterfly on an echinacea flower shows perfectly the importance of garden flowers in supporting our pollinators. It was overwhelmingly voted by the Pollinator Project team as the 2026 winner of this category in the Guernsey Arts Bailiwick Wildlife Photography Exhibition supported by Mourant.
“This year we had new entrants, new pollinators, great new photos in all sorts of poses, but we all loved Florence’s photo of the Speckled Wood. It’s great to see other pollinators getting recognised, not just bees“, said Sharon Hickman from the Pollinator Project. “You can often see butterflies on flowers drinking nectar and at the same time carrying pollen from one flower to another just like this Speckled Wood”.
Florence aged 8, is a pupil at Castel primary school. Her Mum Philippa said: “She has always had an interest in nature, from looking under logs for earthworms to spotting butterflies and beetles. She just loves taking photos and just entered for fun, she didn’t even realise there was a prize. Now she knows she’s planning to buy a new camera and carry on with photography.”
Jayne Wells who presented the award said Barry used to spend time in the garden photographing butterflies and other insects. She explained: “Barry would have chuckled at this photo, his form of gardening was entirely natural. I’d have to hunt for him sometimes among the tall teasels, toadflax and verbenas. He’d have appreciated the contrast between the chocolate brown of the butterfly and the pinky-purple and orange of these cone flowers. Florence did an excellent job.
“Barry would have loved all the entries from the hummingbird hawk moth to the camouflaged comma butterfly, literally all of them”.
