the endangered black grouse through the lens of the young star of wildlife photography Jérémie Villet

Jérémie Villet, Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019 “rising star” award, is a young star in wildlife photography. It blends into the snowy landscapes, as beautiful as they are hostile, to capture wildlife. That day, he woke up around five o’clock in the morning in the mountains to take pictures of the black grouse, a rooster symbol of the European Alps, particularly renowned for its courtship displays.

Several individuals of this species of sedentary bird are in the viewfinder of the image hunter hidden under its camouflage: “We have to hope that there is one that goes all the way to the top. They coo and also do a kind of hissing sound. That’s it, there’s one coming… It’s there… It came… Shhhhh …” he said to the magazine “1:15 p.m. on Saturday” (replay).

“These are animals that disappear and we don’t really realize it”

“He arrived right in the axis where there is the white [de la neige] before. On the other hand, as there is a lot of wind, he is unable to open his wheel behind and parade. Otherwise, it makes him like a sail and he leaves… explains Jérémie Villet, on the lookout in the greatest silence behind his well-hidden telephoto lens. It’s beautiful with red and blue. It’s perfect, exactly how I like it, all white. It really looks like a painting.”

“The black grouse is a bit like our polar bear or our own penguin, he recalls in these times of global warming and human pressure on wildlife. These are animals that disappear and we don’t really realize it…” alert this son of farmers, born on a farm in the middle of the fields in the Yvelines, to whom the teams of Laurent Delahousse had already visited in the winter of 2020 in the Alps, all busy photographing the white rabbit…

> Replays of France Télévisions news magazines are available on the Franceinfo website and its mobile application (iOS & Android), “Magazines” section.