LOOK: Photo of weasel riding woodpecker’s back goes viral

Nature is a treasure trove of fascinating moments just waiting to be captured on camera, and one in particular has seized the collective imagination of netizens everywhere: the image of a weasel riding the back of a woodpecker in flight.

 

 

Martin Le-May, an amateur photographer from Essex , England , was in east London ’s Hornchurch Country Park when a sound alarmed him.

 

“I heard a distressed squawking noise and feared the worst,” he said. “I soon realized it was a woodpecker with some kind of small mammal on its back.”

 

Le-May was able to time the perfect shot; the result is one of the year’s most unforgettable wildlife photographs. Social media positively ate the picture up, leading to several thousand retweets – which came as a complete surprise to the photographer.

 

“It’s almost a dream that you take a photograph that lots and lots of people not only look at but like,” he said. “I’m so proud so many people are getting to see my image. I’m totally taken aback by the response to it.”

 

The creatures have been identified as a European green woodpecker (Picus viridis) and a least weasel (Mustela nivalis).

 

Cute, but far from friendly

 

While the picture may inspire soaring tales of interspecies friendship, the truth is probably a little less sweet.

 

“The green woodpecker is a ground-feeding bird, but weasels normally attack rabbits. The woodpecker is not its usual prey,” wildlife expert Lucy Cooke explained to the BBC.

 

“But weasels are fearless,” she continued. “A female weasel weighs less than a Mars Bar but is as ferocious as a lion, so this is why the woodpecker would have been able to take off with it on its back.”

 

“While it looks like a bizarre event, it’s really not all that surprising if you know a little bit about these two species,” said naturalist David Mizejewski of the National Wildlife Federation in Virginia .

 

According to Mizejewski, this species of woodpecker spends much time on the ground foraging for ants to eat. This behavior invites predators, which in this case just happened to be the weasel. Least weasels feed on voles, mice, and even animals bigger than themselves, such as frogs, rabbits, and yes, birds.

 

“The least weasel’s signature move is to sever the spinal cord of its prey with a bite to the neck, which is exactly what we’re seeing in the photo,” Mizejewski said.

 

It is possible Le-May and his wife may have prevented the least weasel from killing the bird.

 

“I think we may have distracted the weasel as when the woodpecker landed it managed to escape and the weasel ran into the grass,” said Le-May.

 

 

Authenticity in question

 

While some believe the photo to be fake, Dartmouth College computer science professor Hany Farid believes it is legit. Farid is an image analysis and digital forensics expert.

 

Farid admits that the photo’s low resolution complicates the image analysis process. However, the way the least weasel is hugging the woodpecker would be extremely hard to fake.

 

“This would have required a nearly perfect and coincidental alignment of the two animals in their original photos so that they could be composited together,” he explained. “This type of forgery is therefore more difficult to create than, for example, two animals simply standing side-by-side.”

 

Le-May also took several other shots of the scene as it unfolded. Altering so many photos in a consistent and believable manner would have been incredibly difficult.

 

Last but not least (no pun intended), Farid didn’t notice telltale signs that the focus, color, and lighting had been tampered with, nor did he observe any disparities between the picture quality of the two animals.

 

“Combined, I don’t see any evidence that the photo is not real,” said Farid.

 

Steve Backshall, a wildlife presenter, also professed to having “no reason to doubt” the image.

 

“The weasel is pretty fascinating as well. It can kill things much bigger than itself, so it’s an impressive little creature when you think about its size,” he said.

 

“The natural world is filled with wonders,” stated Mizejewski, “and we have the chance of observing them firsthand if we get outside to experience them.” —TJD, GMA News