photo contest: great garden animals

Kyra's favorite spot in the garden is the bird bath (I wonder why!) next to the Hackonechloa, which she prefers to cat nip. (Photo by Adam Mastoon, from Down & Dirty, by Ellen Zachos)

Hello loyal readers, it's time for another photo contest! We've tinkered with the rules to allow our non-blogging readers to enter, so things are a little different this time.

Our theme? GREAT GARDEN ANIMALS... show us your pets!

THE RULES:

1) Enter your best photo of an animal in the garden. The animal may be PET or PEST, and the garden (or plants) should be essential to the image, not just background. No birds or butterflies this time, please.
2) Include a brief caption (1 or 2 sentences).
3) Email your entry to esp@ellenspectorplatt.com. If you have a blog, include the URL so we can link back. We'll add all entries to the bottom of this post.
4) Images should be jpegs, no larger than ONE megabyte.
5) Photos can be indoors or out.
6) Points given for light, composition, and originality. We're not looking for closeups; we want to see how the animal and garden relate to each other.
7) The contest ends at midnight on October 28, 2009. Winners will be announced by November 4.

Here are a few examples, to clarify:

Sisko anticipates the flavor of wheat grass grown indoors from seed on a south-facing windowsill.

Andy K. on his New York terrace: as his hips grew more arthritic, the red wagon became his preferred method of roaming the streets of NYC.

Our talented and entirely impartial judge is once again Joe De Sciose. Joe is an award-winning photographer whose photographs have appeared in numerous Condé Nast, Hearst and Meredith magazines and books, as well as in print media for the New York Botanical Garden and The Brooklyn Botanic Garden. From 2003 to 2008, Joe was a Senior Staff Photographer at Southern Living Magazine. He was the sole photographer for Garden Guide: New York City (The Little Bookroom, 2002) and The Flower Gardener’s Bible (Storey Books, 2003), which was awarded a Garden Globe Award in 2004 by the Garden Writers Association for Best Photography for a Garden Book.

The prizes? A folding garden saw (most excellent tool!), a box of seed packet note cards, and a sock of songbird seed in a gift pack...all in a handsome tote bag.

So show us your best combo of flora and fauna. We can't wait to see what you've got.

ENTRIES

"Get the steak. can't you see we're starving!?!?" Tracy Waaka, Brooklyn NY

Fefe channels his inner feline in a Brooklyn windowsill "jungle"
Laurent Lambert, Brooklyn, NY


The frost is on the pumpkin. Time to get the harvest in!
Sarah James, Exeter NH


This is Titus with our pumpkin harvest. My mom adopted him from our local grocery store with his sister. They were very young, and think my mother is their mother. They follow her everywhere and are always with us in the garden. So cute!
Ulla Kjarval, NYC & the Catskills
http://goldilocksfindsmanhattan.blogspot.com