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!