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| The last Slender-billed Curlew - photographed by Chris Gomersall - before the species was declared extinct |
ALTHOUGH he could not have known it at the time, Chris Gomersall's encounter with a Slender-billed Curlew on a marshland in North Africa was an historic moment not only in his own career but also in ornithological history.
The many photographs he took of the bird 31 years ago are almost certainly the last before the species went globally extinct - and was officially confirmed as such in November 2024.
At the October meeting of Grimsby RSPB Group, Chris described how he came to be within 45 metres of the bird that fateful day in February,1995.
It was early morning, and he had been taken by a Moroccan bird guide to the Moulay-Bouselham lagoon - adjacent to a strawberry field - at Merja Zerga, south of Agadir in Morocco.
The previous day the duo and one other had been out in a boat looking unsuccessfully for one or more examples of the bird.
That following morning, some playful and inquisitive children were also present, and the guide, Hassan, kept them diverted to allow Chris to study the rare wader undisturbed after it was distantly spotted on the edge of the lagoon.
"So as not to disturb it, I crept head down through a growth of lupins until I had reached a good vantage point," he told his audience. "At first, it was quite distant, but, as it grew in confidence, it gradually came to within 45 metres.
"I spent the next 90 or so minutes observing the bird as I worked my way through more than four rolls of film."
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| Chris Gomersall - he crept through lupins to secure his momentous photographs |
Chris revealed that he had not been in Morocco specifically to look for the Slender-billed Curlew.
As a staff photographer/researcher with the RSPB, he had been on an assignment to study the Northern Bald Ibis.
While he was delighted at his encounter with the vanishingly rare curlew, he could not have known that the species' ultimate fate was extinction.
It was fortunate that he kept most of the photographs - many of which he showed in his Grimsby presentation - when he could easily have thrown all but one or two away.
What he reckons to be his best photograph of the bird has now become well-known featuring on the cover of British Birds journal and even the high-circulation French daily newspaper, Le Monde .
As far as he is aware, Hassan is still working as a guide at the same place, but he himself his never been back.
Given the fate of the species, Chris' photograph is unique.
This would cease to be the case if the bird was ever to turn up anew, for instance, in its breeding grounds in Siberia or again wintering in North Africa.
Even so, Chris says no one would be more delighted than he if it were to be rediscovered.
During his fascinating talk, Chris outlined the history of Slender-billed Curlew research, both before and since he took his famous photograph, referring to earlier photographs, including ones by Richard Porter, Yemen in 1984, and by the dedicated French conservation pioneer, Michel Brosselin, who tragically lost his life, aged 43, when he was trampled by a bull on his wife's farm.
Then there was the controversial bird spotted at Druridge Bay in Northumberland in early May 1998. This was thought to be the first and only British record of the species.
However, following an in-depth review of photographs and descriptions, the 'identification'- was subsequently deemed 'not proven'.
Some 15 years later, to the disappointment of many who had travelled to twitch it, Slender-billed Curlew was removed from the British List.
Experts decreed that the bird in question was most likely to have been a juvenile Eurasian Curlew.
During his talk, Chris also described his examination of a collection of of skins of dead Slender-billed Curlews that are held at the National History Museum's ornithological library in Tring, Hertfordshire.
He went on to the case of the stuffed bird that, in April last year, sold for £5,000 - more than 10 times the guide price - at Tennants auction house in Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
He also spoke of a University of Munster project which involved analysing minute chemical food and water traces taken from the feathers of museum skins to see whether they could reveal the former breeding locations of Slender-billed Curlews.
The write-up subsequently published in the journal Bird Conservation International indicated that the place to look for any surviving breeding birds were the steppes of northern Kazakhstan and southern Russia.
But when, in the late 1990s, researchers from Glasgow University went to investigate, no birds were found.
The Slender-billed Curlew was once relatively common, so why its demise?
Could it have been largely due to Nikita Kruschev who, as president of the Soviet Union between 1958 and 1964, decreed that vast tracts of the birds' marshy breeding grounds in Russia and elsewhere should be drained to make way for vegetable and cereal crops?
In naming Kruschev, Chris was not pointing the finger of blame. He noted that prioritisation of food production has long been a policy of governments across the world, including our own.
Has he ever been back to that lagoon in Morocco, if only for old time's sake?
No, but, as far as Chris is aware, Hassan is still working as a guide at the same place - and doubtless hoping against hope that he might one day again see a Slender-billed Curlew?
See also: www.Grimsbynews.blogspot.com
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| The stuffed specimen that sold for £5,000 at a Yorkshire auction in April 2025 |
