UPY 2025

UPY  British Waters Macro - Highly Commended
'Reticulated dragonet spawning'
Cathy Lewis

For the past five years I’ve been diving the Scottish lochs specifically to look for spawning reticulated dragonets (Callionymus reticulatus). I had seen the males displaying to the females, flashing their spectacular iridescent blue dorsal fins, but it took three years to witness them spawning. I got lucky during a targeted dive in Loch Carron. After repeated fin displays by the male, the two finally rose into the water column. This image captures the effort and coordination that goes into a successful spawning rise.

Judge's comment: Many international photographers will be familiar with the mating behaviour of mandarinfish, colourful, tropical dragonets. But until now they probably didn’t realise we have their relatives in British waters, which as this novel images shows, have a very similar spawning behaviour.

Alex Mustard