News

Land conservancy's photo contest opens

The winning photo in the 2025 Habitat at Home Photo Contest was shot by Ken Weitzen.

By Lightning Reports, Published: April 17, 2026

Conserving Carolina invites nature lovers to enter the seventh annual Habitat at Home photo contest, which celebrates the beautiful and wild things we can see outdoors.

The contest aims to inspire more people to restore natural habitat at their homes, as well as places like schools, businesses and houses of worship. The contest runs through June 1.

Conserving Carolina is looking for photos that showcase ways that people are restoring natural habitat — such as native plant gardens or bird boxes. The conservancy is also looking for photos of animals spotted around homes and other buildings. This can include the full range of wildlife from the smallest to the largest. In past years, people have shared photos of lizards, toads, turtles, snakes, butterflies, moths, beetles, bees, birds, deer, foxes, bobcats, bears, squirrels, and much more! 

“The contest is a way to inspire more people to restore wildlife habitat where they live," Communications Director Rose Lane said. "That’s important because animals need a lot more habitat than they can find in parks and nature preserves. We’ve seen major declines in insect and bird populations because they don’t have enough habitat—and that affects all other wildlife. So if you restore some natural habitat at your place, you’re doing something important for nature.” 

The contest is a part of Conserving Carolina’s ongoing Habitat at Home campaign. Through seasonal columns, online outreach and in-person speaker events, the organization offers advice on how to improve habitat where you live. For example, you can:

• 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 more people to improve wildlife habitat.

To enter the contest, simply post your photos or videos on Facebook and/or Instagram, as a public post, and tag @conservingcarolina. If you do not use social media, you can enter the contest by emailing kiko@conservingcarolina.org. You may enter as many times as you want through June 1. To be eligible for prizes, photos must be taken in Western North Carolina or Upstate South Carolina.

After the contest ends, 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. See the full contest rules here.