Not much fun if you’re a sardine!

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There are times when sitting at home in front of the television when I wonder just what they think they are doing with my licence fee. Depressing country village soaps, idiots on ice, and then there’s question time with the monkeys that we task with running our glorious country... hmm. There are other times, however, when my hard earned licence fee seems fully and unquestionably justified. Top Gear and that legend Jeremy Clarkson is one such example. More recently satisfying is the return to the screen of a truly inspiring voice - David Attenborough.

As an angler, enthusiastic photographer and lover of all things nature, the BBC’s latest wildlife series ‘natures great events’ fills me with pleasures and joy that just can’t be explained to city people and 90% of women. First of all, the subjects they are covering, the ‘events’, although things I already know a great deal about, are presented in such a way that the viewer feels as though they are there amongst the action. The modern videography and photography equipment and techniques make the experience seem so real. I admire the people behind these programmers, and am ever so slightly jealous that I’m not in their place.

"I think I can safely say - I wouldn’t wish the reincarnation of a sardine on my worst enemy"

Casting my mind back to the Salmon run episode; some of the frozen and slow motion frames of the salmon being snatched mid-air by hungry grizzly bears were jaws-on-the-floor good. While some people get their jollies from page 3, this is the kind of stuff that gets me ticking – not that I’m adverse to a spot of page 3 browsing of course. Another particularly memorable moment from the same episode was one wise old grizzly swimming to the middle of the river and doing a comical foot dance to waft up a tasty dead salmon from the gravel.

The latest episode took things to another level of interest for me – the sardine run.  Being half South African, with an ambition to travel out there one day to sample to great fishing potential - this episode had me gripped. What’s more, I learned that this episode featured a family friend who flies as a ‘spotter’ for the BBC in a light aircraft. You will see a short segment about Erick in his plane at the end of the show.

That brings me nicely on to the final point of my ramblings, the sardines themselves. This remarkable journey and the instinctive following of predators that follow is incredible, with masses and a sheer volume of animals that boggles the mind. I think I can safely say - I wouldn’t wish the reincarnation of a sardine on my worst enemy. Once shoaled up, they are attacked, exploded, swooped, dived upon, speared, swallowed in millions, sliced and diced, and terrorized from every single angle conceivable until they are all dead.

Everything wants a piece of the cake, from other small fishes, to colossal beasts with 25 rows of teeth. Not much fun when your soul purpose in life is to kick-start the whole food chain off and supply a procession of predators with a yearly food source. Either that, or you make it to breeding size, pass the buck onto your offspring only for them to suffer the same grim fate. One way or another, you will probably get eaten anyway.

You can catch the sardine run on the BBC Iplayer