By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

We heard you wanted to see a picture of a simply gigantic egg. So here it is:

Can you tell which one it is yet?

The Wildlife Gardener was cleaning out the henhouse this morning. Imelda was in the nestbox. When hens lay, they make a contented whirring purring noise, and scuffle about. Imelda seemed more agitated than usual so I closed the henhouse to give her some darkness and peace.

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The Ranger is reporting the winners from the BWPA ceremony at Hoopers Gallery, London. There are some remarkable pictures here, really wonderful stuff. But of course there can only be so many awards given, and one overall winner. We've got access to those top images courtesy of BWPA. So read on to enjoy the cream of British wildlife photography right here on Naturenet.

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By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

The Wildlife Gardener is sad about the closure of Godstone Farm in Surrey due to the E. coli 0157 ‘outbreak’, and because there are many children ill, some seriously, with the bug. This media story is close to my heart: the Junior Wildlife Gardeners have spent many happy hours at Godstone Farm and JWG1 contracted E. coli at a petting farm (not Godstone) at the age of 2. Now government adviser Hugh Pennington has pronounced that ‘parents should "think very hard" about letting children under five touch the animals at petting farms’, a move that I feel will further divorce children from the countryside, their own immune systems and knowing where our food comes from.

Perhaps the problem is not so much about touching animals, rather, where can pathogens be spread to?

Let’s start with my own experience of E. coli. Junior Wildlife Gardener no. 1, her lovely godmother Sarah and I went for a day out at a children’s farm in Kent. It was a muddy November afternoon with few visitors. The animals were pleased to see us, or rather to see the buckets of feed containing cereals and chopped carrots that we bought at the farm shop. And feed the animals we did, paddling about in the inevitable soup of mud, rain, faeces and urine that pools in every farm in the country.

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The BWPA ceremony is this Wednesday and Naturenet will be there! We've been invited along to see the awards presented, and maybe even do some live tweeting or blogging from the auditorium.

So keep your eyes on Naturenet if you're interested to see what's going on.

Plus, the Ranger wants to know, did any readers enter the competition? Or were you tempted, but decided not to? What do you think of the BWPA so far - and what should they do next year? Come on, you can tell us. Leave your comment below - and if we get a few photos to show perhaps I might do a follow-up post of Naturenet readers' BWPA entries, or non-entries.

The crustaceans are a very successful group of animals - at least in the sea, where they are pretty much everywhere. Oddly enough, they've never transferred this success to the land or even really to fresh water. In the UK the only terrestrial crustaceans we are familiar with are the woodlice. These humble creatures somehow have a charm of their own, as is perhaps borne out by the number of local names for them which have survived. Dull would the child be who had not at some time played with these ubiquitous and docile little beasts - racing them, chasing them, teasing them to roll up into balls and even - in my case - trying to feed them to spiders.

A less well-known member of the woodlouse family is the sea slater Ligia oceanica. Undoubtedly the UK's largest terrestrial crustacean (at only 30mm long a not very keenly-fought contest) this entertaining little character lives just above the tideline and subsists by eating debris and rotting seaweed. The Ranger found this one promenading along the esplanade at Puckpool Park, Ryde, and rescued it before the passing pedestrians trampled it.

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By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

The Wildlife Gardener loves photography. Even though the poet WH Auden once said, ‘The camera always lies. It just ain’t art’, I would always much rather go to a photographic exhibition than an art one. And what does he mean by ‘the camera always lies?’ So nobody picks up a paintbrush and adds something to a scene that wasn’t there to start with? Get real, Wystan Hugh, Photoshop hadn’t even been invented when you said that.

And what better days to go out taking photos than snowy ones? In April 2008, snow fell on the North Downs. La famille Wildlife Gardener joined other local families on the sloping field at the back of the house, some with hand-crafted Norwegian sledges (hedge fund manager), others with cushions stuffed into Bags for Life (us) for some jolly slippy slidey japes. I even took some arty photos of the Junior Wildlife Gardeners:

After an hour or so of snow play I was soaked through, fingers and toes numb, nose red, hair hanging down like drippy rats’ tails. As I retreated back to the house to get a fire lit I noticed a man with a very large Victorian-looking plate camera mounted on a tripod photographing the toboggany goings-on.

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By guest blogger Marie Fiore, park ranger at Riverbend Park, Palm Beach County, Florida, USA.

I am a park ranger living and working in South Florida. One afternoon a few years ago, near closing time I found a vehicle blocking my exit at the employees-only gate. I was not happy to say the least as I have a number of gates that need to be secured for the night. So, off I went looking for the owner of the vehicle. It turned out there were three of them. Again I was less than pleased seeing them off the trail doing who-knows-what to my park.

The compass shows on the iphone screen, to show me which way to the cache

As I approached them I could see the look of horror in their eyes and their faces drain of color as the big bad ranger got closer. I demanded to know what they were doing and why, AND said they had better have a good reason for blocking me in my own park. I was told simply, Geocaching. WHAT!?!

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Every August bank holiday an extraordinary thing happens in the Ranger's home town of Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. Estimates of numbers vary widely but certainly more than 2,000 scooters and their riders descend upon the town for the Ryde International Scooter Rally.

Scooters of all sorts - and I do mean all sorts - fill the town. The air is literally blue with two-stroke fumes and the buzzing of tinny engines is a constant drone throughout the weekend. Various events go on, and there is music and jollity, but the main event is the Sunday ride-out, when all the scooters gather on the seafront before riding off to some location on the Island. They dress up in remarkable costumes and drive some bizarrely-customised machines. This has become a big spectator event, and crowds of locals come out to line the streets, waving the scooterists off on their parade.

It's fun, and quite a spectacle. But it's particularly interesting to me because of something unusual about this event: nobody organises it. It just happens, and for one weekend Ryde's parks, streets and pavements are full to bursting with scooters. This is striking to a public servant like myself who spends a lot of the rest of the year hiring out these same parks for public events - checking insurance, taking fees, policing disputes between neighbours, and all the million-and-one things that local councils are obliged to do. And yet this big, internationally-renowned event just happens. How does that come about?

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The Arreton Hare - previously stolen - is back in place and tonight a merry band of hare enthusiasts gathered at the full moon to mark his return with a suitable celebration.

Arreton Parish Council, Gift to Nature, Island 2000 and the Isle of Wight Council were all represented at the informal gathering at the White Lion pub, Arreton. The pub's regulars have been generously collecting towards the restoration costs, and the party checked out the quality of the beer before setting off up the dark road to Arreton Cross to see the full moon shining down upon the hare, now reunited with his magpie friends.

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Here's a video that made the Ranger scratch his head. Can kindness actually be offensive? Well, watch this and you'll see how it almost can!

Obviously this is an ad sponsored by someone-or-other but it's still interesting to ask yourself if this really is something you'd like to happen to you. The blurb says this:

Normally, little everyday acts of kindness pass with no fanfare. We don’t believe that’s right, so that’s why in August we surprised unsuspecting members of the public who showed a little kindness to strangers.

Actors posed as members of public in need of a little help, to see how many people would be kind enough to help. Each person who did was given a huge, over the top kindness ‘celebration’ and a bottle of champagne to take home. For a few days, those little acts of kindness got the recognition they deserve.

But frankly, if that happened to me after doing some poor dolt a good turn, I'd find that possibly not personally offensive but certainly a bit over the top, as it says, and not really the English way. If you're doing a favour, it's a favour, isn't it? If you expect something back, it's not a favour. Or is it the end-of-summer feeling making me jaded?