Wildlife photos – the ones that got away...

SOMETIMES it’s not enough to tell – you have to show.

When it comes to rare or unusual sightings of wildlife, or anything else for that matter, photographic proof is considered pretty essential.

If someone told you they had witnessed a woodpecker being attacked by a weasel and taking off with the predator perched on its back, you would expect such a freak sighting to be verified with a picture.

Fortunately it was. Back in 2015 amateur photographer Martin LeHay was on a walk in Essex when he caught the extraordinary image of a weasel riding on the back of a green woodpecker as it flew through the air.

The photograph of the unlikely sighting became an internet sensation. (If you haven’t seen it simply Google: ‘woodpecker weasel’.)

Whenever I chance across rare wildlife moments I always try to make sure I record the sighting, for verification, for sharing, and as a treasured record.

Photographs chronicle some of my most precious memories of nature, from close-up encounters with humpback whales and basking sharks, leopards and piranhas, to newly discovered rainforest species and critically endangered birds.

But I also have a mental album of all those sightings I failed to record.

Empty spaces in the frames. And while I have had a recent run of missed photo opportunities, some of my worst blunders stretch further back.

A few years ago on a lunch break I spotted an otter hunting in King Point Marina in Plymouth. Except that my phone had completely run out of power. In desperation I called over a passer-by to take a photo, and all they captured was a slab of seawater and some bubbles.

In Devon’s Lydford Forest in 2010 a rare goshawk flew over me – my first ever encounter – and I grabbed for my camera and missed it. And in Dartmoor’s Tavy Cleave several years ago an osprey appeared overhead – not something you see every day on Dartmoor. Once I realised I had my lens cap on, and removed it, the raptor had sailed off behind a cloud and disappeared.

There are plenty of other examples, from stoats on the garden lawn to a Scottish wildcat in the snow in the Highlands, a bittern briefly emerging from a Cornish reedbed to a rare sand lizard in Dorset that came so close I couldn’t photograph it with the telephoto lens I was using.

No photos. No proof. You’ll just have to take me on my word.

But sometimes you get a second chance.

Many winters ago on a foggy morning walking the dog I spotted a rare hen harrier on Dartmoor near where I live. I didn’t have a camera with me, so never managed to record it.

Then, last November, I saw a grey bird of prey floating low over the gorse and realised it was the same species. This time I had a camera. No longer the one that got away, I was overjoyed at finally capturing it on film.

I have learnt it is always worth bringing a camera on country walks just in case, as you never know what you might see. Who knows, you might even chance across a weasel riding on a woodpecker’s back... (and if you do, just remember to take the lens cap off ).