THE WILD LIFE

The star of TV’S Great Escapes has started a new life with his family – and faithful hound – on the Devon coast. Each week he shares his adventures in a new column

With the combination of torrential deluges and early summer sunshine that, if not quite blistering, still necessitates a touch of Factor 30 on my bald spot, the rugged cliffs here are now a riot of life. It’s as though some celestial gardener has devised the ideal plan for creating the perfect rockery, tumbling towards a gigantic water feature. It’s green, it’s pleasant, and for the time being at least feels like an unequivocal announcement that summer is upon us.

We’ve already had the Music Festival down here in Dartmouth – the traditional harbinger of the new season. Over the course of the weekend all manner of musicians and bands thrashed away, lustily supported by a crowd who may well have tempered a hot day with a cold cider or six. The lingering impression for me now it’s over is one of relief as I thought I’d be asked to play, and this is always an emotional experience for all concerned. I am an abysmal guitarist, specialising in tuneless bellowing accompanied by the sort of strumming that looks (and possibly sounds) like I’m vigorously grating a very hard cheese.

But the arrival of summer now means we’re actually starting to get quite busy. This is a good thing as it gives me lots of excuses to head out of the river mouth and into the wide spaces of the open sea, all the while blethering away to my passengers. One of the drawbacks of this is that I always get carried away and end up promising encounters with humpback whales, polar bears and breaching great whites, which makes my later sheepish explanations as to why barnacles are really quite exciting sound particularly lame.

It was as we made our way home from one such trip having seen a seagull and a duck (I believe vast synchronised teams of basking sharks were discussed as we headed out to sea), that a call as hard and clear as a diamond split the air. It was unmistakably predatory, and we all glanced upwards to its source to see a peregrine falcon overhead, shrieking in triumph as it returned to its nest. The call was cupped and amplified by the steep cliff walls, setting up a clamour among the other seabirds nesting nearby. Held in the falcon’s talons was its prey, limp and lifeless, hanging in the shadow of the grey cloak of its wings as it glided towards its home. The falcon came to rest on a small ledge about 100ft up, to look down at us with a quartzite gaze from under hooded brows. It was quite, quite beautiful, the very essence of the coastline around it, and yet strangely this wild and fierce creature owes its continued existence entirely to the unyielding resolve of a few locals.

For the last few years many of the peregrines on the Devon coast, and further afield, have had their eggs taken from their nests by collectors. There is, of course, nothing wrong with collecting eggs if the species in question is legally targeted, and the young have already hatched. It is a fringe element, a hardcore, that represent

‘A call as hard and clear as diamond split the air – a peregrine shrieking in triumph’

a dark side to the practice. This involves the obsessive gathering of eggs of rare species, so what would have been a young bird becomes a lifeless trinket in a drawer, a thing to be coveted and fussed over as part of a peculiarly destructive vanity project for the gratification of the few.

The local people decided this was not acceptable, and have launched a scheme that sees the nests monitored day and night. It is run entirely by volunteers, and happily has already seen a marked increase in the number of eggs hatching successfully. It seems the high emotions generated by one of our most regal birds of prey bring out the very worst in people, and the very best. The actions of those who give up their time to make sure the eggs hatch and the chicks fledge will hopefully mean the great amphitheatre of the cliffs will still echo with that distinctive sound for many years to come – a crystal clear high-note that is a salute to those who watch over something so wild and unique, determined to keep it that way.