July's photo competition theme was Wildlife close-ups, giving you the chance to zoom in and capture nature's vibrant colours, textures and details as summer reaches full swing on our nature reserves.

Thank you to everyone who took part this month; we loved seeing how you interpreted the theme, and as always it was difficult to create a voting shortlist! The winner will be contacted via email.

Daryl captured this stunning close-up of a male brown hawker dragonfly in a meadow at Mere Sands Wood, describing how it caught his eye: "It’s not always easy to spot dragonflies unless you have watched them land - such is their amazing camouflage, but this fellow was enormous and stood out amongst the long grass."

Our voters appreciated the detail in this photo, with one person commenting: "Excellent close up of the eyes giving it an alien type appearance!" Another voter gave this praise: "I've never seen anything like that before. Just an incredible shot."

Mariann's photo captures a female common darter dragonfly resting on a perch. Mariann described how tricky it was to get this shot: "I had to approach extremely slowly and low to the ground, moving only when the dragonfly was focused on searching for prey. It took several minutes of patient, millimeter-by-millimeter movement to get close enough to achieve this level of detail without triggering its flight reflex, allowing me to capture its serene, motionless state against the clean background."

Our voters loved this image, describing it as "very detailed and a beautiful picture." One voter said: "As the title suggests, it really does look like it's smiling!" Congratulations Mariann!