News

Habitat at Home photo contest open for entries

Photo of a Northern flicker by Mitch Covington was the 2024 Habitat at Home contest winner.

By Lightning Reports, Published: April 24, 2025

Conserving Carolina invites the public to enter the sixth annual Habitat at Home spring photo contest, which celebrates the beautiful and wild things we can see right outside our door.

The purpose of the contest is to inspire people to cultivate natural areas around their homes, expanding much-needed habitat for wild creatures from bees to bears. The deadline to enter is June 1.

Conserving Carolina is looking for photos that show ways that people are supporting wildlife, such as native wildflower gardens or bird boxes. They are also looking for photos of animals spotted around your home or other places in your community, such as your school, business, or house of worship. This includes both small and large animals. In past years, people have shared photos of bees, butterflies, beetles, birds, lizards, toads, turtles, snakes, deer, foxes, bobcats, bears, squirrels, and much more! 

Communications and Marketing Director Rose Lane, says “We live in a time when so many wildlife populations are plummeting because there’s not enough habitat. That means that when you create habitat at your home, you are offering a very real lifeline for wild creatures. And we want to see the beautiful, hopeful change that you are creating in this photo contest!”

Here are some tips for making a more nature-friendly yard or garden:

• Avoid pesticides. Killing insects harms all the creatures that depend on insects for food.
• Grow native plants. They are a much better source of food than introduced plants.
• Replace invasive plants like English ivy or Bradford pear with native plants that support wildlife.
• Let plants and trees grow around your streams, instead of mowing to the water’s edge.
• Provide resources like birdhouses, bat houses, bee hotels, and birdbaths.

The contest is open to both advanced photographers and people who are just having fun. Youth entries are encouraged. The primary goal is to celebrate nature near home and inspire others, so all levels of photography are celebrated.

This year, Conserving Carolina is welcoming photos from all four seasons, as long as they were taken in either 2024 or 2025.  To be eligible for prizes, photos must be taken in Western North Carolina or Upstate South Carolina. You may enter multiple times, up until June 1.

You can enter the contest either through social media or email.

To enter by social media, share your photo on Facebook or Instagram and tag @conservingcarolina. You must make your photo a public post or Conserving Carolina won’t be able to see it! Or you can email your photo to rose@conservingcarolina.org.  Describe in the social media post or email when and where it was taken.

After the entry deadline, a panel of judges will select five finalists. The grand prize winner will be chosen through online voting. The grand prize is a professional landscape consultation by Mark Byington of Byington Landscape Architects, who is an expert in sustainable landscapes. The other four finalists will win $25 gift cards to their choice of local businesses that sell native plants. Find full contest rules at conservingcarolina.org/contest2025.