Teenager's bumblebee photo creates buzz at awards

A photo of a bumblebee in flight taken by a Guernsey schoolboy on his smartphone has won the new Pollinator category at the island's annual photography awards.

Elizabeth College student Ajax took the photo when he was visiting Candie Gardens in St Peter Port for a school project - picking up a £500 prize as well as the first ever Barry Wells Award for Young Photographers.

Sharon Hickman, one of the judges for Guernsey Arts' Bailiwick Wildlife Photography Exhibition, said the panel "all agreed that this image perfectly captured a moment in time and showed the close relationship between pollinators and flowers".

"Catching any flying creature is a real skill and Ajax did a great job," she said.

Ajax, who also won a year's membership of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, only told his family he had entered the day before he was invited to the awards ceremony.

Mrs Hickman, who is also education lead at the Pollinator Project, said: "It was really good to see so many different insects represented as it's not only bees, but butterflies, moths, beetles and even wasps and flies that are important pollinators in Guernsey."

The winning image is believed to be of common carder bee, she said.

The new award was named after local photographer and Pollinator Project co-founder Barry Wells, who died in 2024, and will run for three years.

His widow Jayne Wells, who presented the award, said Mr Wells was "an inspiration to so many people" and would have loved that the new category would "help young photographers".

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