It is said that childhood memories are the most vivid and long-lasting and I have unclouded recollections of my local common. Indeed, seeds of my love of the natural world were sown and germinated rapidly there.

It was on the common that my mother, a keen naturalist herself, introduced me to a wealth of wildlife delights at the wide-eyed tender age of five.

Living close to the common we would sally forth on sunny spring afternoons to catch tadpoles in the lake. Netting the lazily-swimming little black squiggles proved easy but not so the dusky, dainty long-nosed recently hatched pike which constantly evaded a sweep of my net.

One afternoon I gazed in wonderment at my first red admiral fanning its wings on a gorse bush, observed eggs of lacewing flies lain on hair-like threads under leaves and collected broods of caterpillars, not sadly always feeding them on the correct food plant! I watched swarms of large white butterflies homing in on wild flowers and being remnant heathland, supported a colony of common lizards, rarely seen but often heard in the heather.

Boys will be boys, of course, and although I now look back in horror, I spent time bird’s nesting collecting eggs of blackbird, thrush, dunnock, chaffinch and starling. Unlike my friends, I felt guilty robbing nests and restricted my efforts to taking just one egg from each, so perhaps my strong conservation instincts were emerging even then.

The evocative call of the cuckoo featured regularly each spring and sadly to hear those dual notes anywhere now is a rarity. But of all those wonderful recollections, it was the lure of the pond which beckoned me to its banks most evenings after homework was completed. We even went ice-skating in severe winters.

I used my parent’s old Box Brownie camera to take my first ever photo of a pair of swans nesting on the bank. Initially it was with net and jam jar that I fished, taking the catch home to my garden pond.

An easy method of catching yearling roach was to sling a bread-bated net to the pond bed and watch large shoals skittering above. A deft upward jerk of the net resulted in a few being caught and my garden pond soon became well stocked.

I loved to spend warm rainy evenings alone when few others braved the elements. My ‘keep’ net housed perch, roach, gudgeon and surprisingly I actually hooked some large minnows, a species usually found in flowing water.

Other fishy tales come to mind. One hot humid summer’s afternoon as storm clouds billowed like giant cauliflowers rearing heavenwards, the fish indulged in a feeding frenzy and large tench, roach and perch and as the water boiled and I caught one at each cast.

Another strange incident was on several occasions when fishing on sunny days. Suddenly a large pike would turn on its side causing a dull golden flash to be reflected off its flank . Not one but several pike would flash at the same instant right across the pond over a wide area. What unknown rather spooky stimulus among those pike sparked that collective reaction? The answer remains a mystery.

(Pictured is a red admiral butterfly).