Diary - Spring 2009

Still, I’m not moaning, that’s what hats, coats and gloves are for, (even if it does mean wearing them indoors), and I got some ‘okay’ photos for all the wombling about in waterproofs and fleeces.

Although the evenings were spent huddling over the DVD player for sci-fi entertainment and warmth the pre Christmas period in France was interesting as I spent a day in my neighbours' ‘Palombiere’. This fully furnished camp in the woods is equipped with all the rustic mod-cons and was even as warm as toast – I didn’t want to leave in the evening when the day's shooting was over. Shooting in this instance involving guns and pigeons. Clearly I was a passive observer but the practice which is very local to the region and seems to be fading fast is the traditional ‘sport’ of the hunters in my parts. Not a shot was fired all day and thus not a pigeon fell – it rained and we only glimpsed a couple of birds flying over.

Wood pigeons are migrants here and used to arrive each October and November in their hundreds of thousands, but sadly for Messrs Soulage et al the warmer winters to the north have drastically slowed the passage and this year a sum of fifty bagged birds was thought to be a realistic target. I had a fascinating day and learned a lot – the hunting fraternity being the only folks who have any interest in the local fauna and flora – and as usual the family's hospitality knew no bounds. As did their hilarity when I announced my vegetarianism!

Getting back south was an opportunity not to be missed and despite a loss of luggage scare, a few climatic set backs  and ‘trouble with the ice’ we spent a great couple of weeks in the company of old muckers, including the indefatigable ‘Woodie’ (Expedition Leader), the irrepressible Paul Goldstein (Exodus), Jonathan and Angie Scott and Andrew Chasney (BBC), and new boy Simon Calder (Travel guru and wit par excellence). We got ashore three times on South Georgia, including a long day at St Andrews Bay, a first for me and straight into the charts as a global favourite, and then again at the huge chinstrap colony on Paulet Island. The passengers and crew burned millions of pixels and some fine photographs are surely now gracing living room walls across the land. I entertained a passionate holiday infatuation with the Snow Petrels and occasionally pointed my glassware at the Penguins.

You can see some of these meagre efforts on www.chrispackhamphotos.com. We had a stop-over in Buenos Aires on the way back where a visit to the city cemetery and the tomb of Eva Peron were another highlight in a month of the same.

I had wanted to return to the Jarvzoo in Sweden ever since I made a fleeting visit in the mid nineties. The place had left a big impression on two accounts; one, I had hand fed a Wolverine, and still left with all my fingers, and two, I had reckoned that its huge natural enclosures would offer excellent photographic opportunities of some really sexy species. Staffan Widstrand, the Swedish photographer behind the fabulous Wild Wonders of Europe project, assured me that this was the case and so we began a correspondence with the owners and resolved to visit after Christmas - but only so long as it snowed.

I was adamant that I wanted Wolves et al smothered in the frothy white stuff. Well, my wish was granted and we checked into the amazing Wolf Hotel with a good 30cms on the ground. (The WH is a self catering facility which has rooms with huge picture windows which face into a large wolf enclosure. On the first night when they all started howling outside our open window it was . . . sublime). Now we were doing okay, photographically, but our real saviour was Roger Olsson, a fabulously hospitable and enthusiastic member of the staff whose knowledge of the individual animals proved invaluable and certainly led to the bagging of our best shots. We are greatly indebted to him and his help. On the last day, in the last half hour, I got the picture I was hoping for, not the cheesy wolves I’d already cleaned up on, but an arty-blurry-off-the-wall wolfy snap which it appears that only I like. Not that I like it that much of course - I’m currently still hiding it in my hard drives.