THE LAST EAGLE

I saw him once, England’s last golden eagle. He came from above Kidsty Pike, low slow beats of huge wings carrying him in seconds across Haweswater and out to the Shap fells. But in the winter of 2015, the end finally came.

His passing sounded a warning though it seems to have gone largely unheeded. In recent years, I have seen more golden eagles in Scotland than ever before and despite the relative proximity of a mate, the last of these great birds south of the border was destined to fly alone for a decade before the end. With numbers in the Highlands steadily rising, it speaks volumes that there are no eagles to be seen on the Lakeland fells.

The National Park is promoted relentlessly, visitor numbers continue to rise - ‘It’s a National Park - not a car park’ read one of the authority’s own bill boards in the wake of the pandemic. Yet the car parks are bursting - despite extortionate fees in places among the least affluent in the county - valley roads gridlocked in peak season, their campsites charging sufficient that you might be excused for thinking breakfast was included - none of which seems likely to change any time soon. England’s ‘adventure capital’ seems an increasingly unlikely title for a place suffering such blatant commoditisation.

Meanwhile its skies remain barren, for there is no place here where an eagle might remain undisturbed, no place at all for the bird that is the embodiment of all that is wild. And we are all that much poorer for it.

Yet somehow, these eastern fells seem wilder still than most.

Kidsty Pike remains among my favourite haunts on the fells and on a clear winter’s day, when the snow lies thick beneath layered ridges that line the horizon from north to south, sometimes I think I can still sense the presence of England’s last eagle.