A keen photographer scooped the top prize at the British Wildlife Photography Awards.

Daniel Trim from Hertfordshire took the overall winner and the urban wildlife category winner for his image Behind Bars, capturing a grey heron.

The event, now in its tenth year, is to celebrate nature in Britain and a coffee table book is produced each year.

The image blurb says: “Grey herons thrive around London’s wilder waterways, but they also do well in more urban settings such as the smaller parks and canals, despite the litter and large numbers of people walking by. This individual was hunting in the cover of a bridge – presumably the fish were taking shelter among the fallen leaves and plastic bottles. The morning light shining through a grill gives the impression that the bird is trapped as it gazes out through the mesh.”

Here Daniel reveals more about his hobby.

St Albans & Harpenden Review:

What inspired you to get into photography?

My mum was a keen photographer and from a young age I used her film camera to take (pretty bad) photographs. I think this sparked my passion and combined with a love of the natural world I’d had since a very young age made wildlife photography the perfect mix!

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What’s the best picture you’ve taken?

My favourites change all the time but I tend to be quite self critical, which is a good thing with anything creative in my opinion. I’m still very happy with the wide angle ghost crab photo I took while on honeymoon in The Seychelles. This photo features in the article here and took quite a lot of work get. I spent a fair amount of time laying in the sand at first light waiting for a confident crab to allow me to get close enough.

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What’s your favourite subject?

I love most aspect of wildlife photography from macro with insects, flowers or fungi to birds and mammals but generally I’m a huge fan of urban wildlife. You tend to have great opportunities to be creative with the manmade features, light, etc. I enjoy showing how wildlife can thrive in built up areas.

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What do you love about capturing Hertfordshire?

For nature photography in Hertfordshire I often head to Therfield Heath near Royston to photograph the pasqueflower display in spring. They are fantastic small purple flowers and nationally very rare, we’re lucky to have such a large number in the county. On a frosty morning the opportunities to take a creative photo are plentiful once you can find a nicely isolated flower, then you just have to hope for a nice sunrise.