CLEETHORPES played
host to the “premiere” of an illustrated talk - on “birds of the snow”
- by one of Britain’s top birders.
At a RSPB meeting
at Corpus
Christi
community centre, Graham Catley, a consultant ornithologist and wildlife
photographer, recounted his winter travels - some of them spiced with more than
a hint of danger - in remote parts of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Canada.
He brought back
with him not just special memories but superb photographs of such species as nutcracker,
pine grosbeak, Arctic redpoll, Siberian tit and black-capped chickadee and his
personal favourite, the snowy owl.
Sometimes
temperatures were as low as minus 28 degrees, and on one occasion, after waiting
in snow too long for one particular rarity, he was disconcerted to find himself
totally numb from the knees down.
“I think I overdid
it by at least an hour on that occasion,” he said wryly. “But you don’t get
good bird photographs unless you’re prepared to suffer!
“It brought it
home to me that British winterwear is
not adequate in those sorts of
conditions - you need specialist gear for Arctic-type weather.”
When he found the
nearest café, Graham made ordering food and drink the second priority - the
first was to pull off boots and socks and de-freeze in front of a radiator.
On one excursion, he
and his two companions decided to take a road trip to a top birding habitat some
600 miles north of Helsinki.
At times, they
drove as far as 65 miles without seeing another car - just reindeer!
 |
| Graham Catley - superb photographs |
“Even with car heater
on, our breath froze on the inside of the windscreen,”he recalled.
But it was all
worth for his stunning portfolio of photographs which sometimes had his
Cleethorpes audience literally gasping with delight.
Modestly, Graham attributed
the shots not to his own skill and patience but to the purity of the northern
light.
Unfortunately, he
missed out on seeing a hazel hen (though he saw a dead specimen on one road),
but at various locations, he caught up with such beauties as northern shrike, Siberian
jay, pygmy owl, azure tit and the increasingly rare Steller’s eider whose
numbers have mysteriously plummeted by 85 per cent over the past 35 years.
Graham said he was
endless impressed by how Nordic log cabins remained warm thanks to their
triple-glazing and reindeer-skin covered seats and to being erected on stilts.
“Even with a small
electric convector heater, a temperature of 20 deg was maintained,”he said. “In
this country, we’ve got a lot to learn about insulation from the
Scandinavians.”
During question
time, a member suggested that some of Graham’s photographs would make excellent Christmas cards - a comment endorsed by RSPB Grimsby branch branch group leader,
Terry Whalin, who insisted: “I am sure there would be a market.”
Graham’s
photographs can be viewed on his blog: http://pewit.blogspot.co.uk/
