A striking image of bats flying in darkness has won the top prize at the British Wildlife Photography Awards for 2018.
Paul Colley spent 14 months developing an infrared camera and lighting system to capture the high-speed flight of the bats in darkness. The photo is an in-camera double exposure that captured the leading bat milliseconds before it caught the insect seen right in front of it. Since the bats are a protected species, Colley photographed them in the wild with guidance from the Bat Conservation Trust and Natural England.
"No other image in my portfolio had been so clearly conceived and yet so difficult to achieve," Colley said.
Image 1 of 8: Paul Colley was the overall winner and winner of the black and white class with Contrails at Dawn, a picture of Daubenton's bats taken at Coate Water Country Park, Wiltshire.
"My artistic intent was to capture this extraordinary little bat's speed of movement and hunting flight path, but the journey to success was littered with disappointing failures.
