We launched the bird photography competition a few years ago and it has proved to be increasingly popular as time has passed. The competition was always intended to be fun, with entrants remaining anonymous and the public choosing their favourite photos to proceed through the various tournament style knockout stages. It takes a lot of work in the background to run the competition, but we always enjoy doing so as we never know which photograph is going to win, and the results as the competition progresses always throw up a few surprises.

Therefore, we are sending this message to ask everyone who enters the competition to please do so with the same ethos. We ask everyone to please refrain from using social media accounts to appeal for votes. If we can keep all entries anonymous then the voting is a true reflection of people's thoughts, and the final results will be unbiased and genuine. The rules for the next competition will be changed slightly to reflect this, and ultimately if biased voting continues we will either reserve the right to withdraw photos from the competition at any stage, or we'll stop running it altogether which we don't want to do.

We hope you understand us sending out this message, and we thank everyone who has entered past and present competitions and all those who've taken the time to vote.