Martin LeMay

Amateur photographer Martin LeMay of Essex
explained it thus:
‘It was a sunny afternoon, with the
occasional cloud making the Hornchurch Country Park seem that grey-brown, dull
winter colour even though it was 2 March.
‘My wife Ann and I had gone for a walk. I had
hoped she might see a green woodpecker as she had not really seen one before.
‘As we walked we heard a distressed squawking
and I saw that flash of green. So hurriedly I pointed the bird out to Ann and
it settled into the grass behind a couple of small silver birch trees.
‘Both of us trained our binoculars and it
occurred to me that the woodpecker was unnaturally hopping about like it was
treading on a hot surface.
‘Lots of wing flapping showing that
gloriously yellow/white colour interspersed with the flash of red head
feathers.
‘Just after I switched from my binoculars to
my camera the bird flew across us and slightly in our direction. Suddenly it
was obvious it had a small mammal on its back and this was a struggle for
life.’
‘The woodpecker landed in front of us and I
feared the worst. I guess our presence, maybe 25 metres away, momentarily
distracted the weasel.
‘The woodpecker seized the opportunity and
flew up and away into some bushes away to our left.
‘Quickly the bird gathered its self-respect
and flew up into the trees and away from our sight.’
‘The woodpecker left with its life, the
weasel just disappeared into the long grass, hungry.’
The astonishing
photograph that Martin captured that day of a weasel riding a woodpecker in
flight quickly went viral: '''
‘It’s actually quite outstanding how
popular this photo is” said Martin.  Last Tuesday I thought it would have
died down fairly quickly, maybe by Wednesday or Thursday. You can notice
countries suddenly getting hold of it because today I’ve had a lot of Twitter
and Facebook traffic from India, and it happened with Bulgaria the other day.
I’m still getting a lot of stuff from the UK – not people noticing it for the
first time but just getting round to commenting on it.
‘The original tweet has had over 19 million
hits, it’s unbelievable – Katy Perry retweeted it, and a guy called Ne-Yo (it
had to be explained to me that he was a rapper)! It’s not as bad as it was last
week but since we’ve been talking, I’ve had two emails about it. It’s quite
crazy – I’m just an ordinary bloke!’
The photograph has spawned many amusing
parodies too. '''
‘The two very early ones I remember were
one where someone had put a moving red cape on the weasel and that looked
really funny. Also, someone had taken the picture of Vladimir Putin on a horse,
when he was topless. Obviously because he was riding a horse, to get him to
straddle the weasel was, I suspect, quite easy. That was quite a good one.’ 
Martin joyously
cradling his impressively massive long-lens. 
On behalf of
the fraternity Brother Martin has commissioned LeMay to produce a special
artwork which trumps the original shot by adding ‘extra martin.’   I
have challenged him to capture a similar shot of a pine marten riding a house
martin in flight.  LeMay has spent the last two weeks loitering in the
bushes in Martin Mere hoping to deliver on the commission, but thus far without
success.  …It is true, however, that the best things come to those who
wait.
Merry Martinmas
everybody, may Mars bless us, every one!