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| Getting up close to the birds - photographer and raconteur Steve Race |
A FRONTLINE British wildlife photographer has revealed a scary moment while snapping shoreline waders.
Because he favours sharing the same eyeline as his subjects, the strategy of Steve Race is to lie motionless on the sand and wait for the incoming tide to drive the birds up to him.
Over the years, it has enabled him to secure fantastic close-up shots of the likes of oystercatcher, redshank, knot, sanderling and more.
But on one occasion, the strategy could have cost him his life.
With the incoming tide just yards away, he found himself temporarily paralysed in both legs by paresthesia, familiarly known as 'pins and needles'.
"It was not a pleasant experience," he told the April meeting of Grimsby and Cleethorpes RSPB group. "I couldn't move.
"With the tide coming in fast, I thought for a moment I was going to drown!"
Happily, Steve was able to use his elbows to crawl - carrying all his optical gear - to higher ground where feeling quickly returned to his legs.
Steve is a professional photographer and co-director with Richard Baines of the firm, Yorkshire Coast Nature which runs birding holidays coasts, mostly in his native county (he lives in Scarborough) but also elsewhere in Britain, with occasional forays overseas.
His presentation on the birds of Bempton and North Yorkshire was greatly enjoyed by the 50 or so attendees - not just because of the quality (and occasional quirkiness) of the photographs but also because his commentary was fast-paced and spiced with humour.
It was great to hear not just that, at least in the southern section of the North Sea, precious seabirds seem to have withstood the menace of avian flu, but also that minke whales and bottle nosed dolphins are now regularly being sighted from land.
There was some sentimentality - not just shots of seal pups and puffins but also amusing video footage of two dipper chicks waiting (impatiently) to be fed by a parent.
However, there were also reminders that nature is often not feathery and fluffy, but, in Tennyson's words, "red in tooth and claw".
Peregrines with bloodied prey featured in Steve's presentation as did one gruesome shot of rival gannets pecking into each others' eyes.
"I’ve seen gannets' eyes burst and pop out," he declared. "On one occasion, two grappling gannets plunged from cliff to sea where one then drowned the other."
Steve also threw a mystery into his box of tricks.
Purple sandpipers used annually to roost in significant numbers on Scarborough’s east pier, but this past winter not one returned Why might that be?
For six years Steve was an education officer with the RSPB at Bempton.
Asked if there was a rat population at the cliffs, he confirmed this to be the case and that, in the past, their presence at the visitor centre has been a concern.
At night, the cliffs are also patrolled by stoats and weasels putting incubating adults, eggs and chicks on the higher ledges at risk from predation.
From time to time, foxes have also been problematical, especially when, as has happened, they bite the heads off sleeping gannets.
Quizzed on whether the ever-increasing number of windfarms in the North Sea posed a threat to seabird colonies, he conceded there were likely to be casualties among gannets, especially if they were sucked into the vortices of rotating turbine blades
What were the star birds of Steve's presentation?
Dotterel, golden plover and great northern diver (overwintering in Scarborough harbour) all have their claim.
But Steve definitely had a soft spot for the black-browed albatross that proved such a magnet at Bempton in summer 2021 and 2022.
After giving Yorkshire a miss last summer Will 'Albert' return in 2024? Time will soon tell.
* More about Yorkshire Coast Nature at:
Yorkshire Coast Nature - Nature Tours, Workshops & Gallery
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| Life among the gannets - Steve offering photography tips to Ellie Harrison during shooting of a sequence for BBC TV's Countryfile show |
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