Carl Zeiss Award 2014

Published on 12 August 2014

The Carl Zeiss Award is awarded for a photograph, or set of photographs, judged to have been most instructive for the BBRC’s assessment of difficult species (or subspecies) during the previous year. The first Ascension Frigatebird for Britain, found on Tiree, Argyll, in July 1953, lay in a museum tray, masquerading as a Magnificent Frigatebird for many years before former BBRC members Grahame Walbridge and Brian Small undertook some excellent detective work to uncover its true identity. The first record was amazing enough, but it is even more extraordinary that, almost exactly 60 years later, the same species turned up again on another island in western Scotland. The close proximity of a famous distillery may have caused some sense of disbelief in the claim – perhaps the observers had been slightly intoxicated and were therefore mistaken! – but the images captured by Jim Sim at Bowmore, Islay, on 5th July left no such doubt. The Islay frigatebird romped home by a large majority in this year’s competition, to win Jim a pair of the fabulous new Zeiss Victory SF binoculars as reward for his efforts. Voters felt that these images provided great documentation of a fantastic record, one that would so easily have been otherwise lost.  The prize will be presented at 4:00pm on Friday 15th August 2014 in the Events Marquee, as part of the British Birds Photograph of the Year award.  The presentation will include a run down of the top short-listed images by Adam Rowlands, BBRC Chairman.  You can read full details of this year’s award in the August British Birds. We are extremely grateful to Carl Zeiss Ltd and RSPB for their continued  support of BBRC’s work.  You can visit the RSPB stand in Marquee 4 at the Birdfair.  You can also catch up with Zeiss in the Optics Marquee and British Birds in Marquee 3.  See here for details of previous year’s winners.Carl-Zeiss-winner