FOR Hugh Miles, BAFTA winning film maker and avid angler, searching for white-clawed crayfish in the pure chalk stream waters of Wimborne’s River Allen is every bit as exciting as tracking tigers through the Indian jungle.

He should know. With more than 100 films to his credit, 11 ‘green Oscars’ and a lifetime achievement award from Wildscreen, and projects with David Attenborough under his belt, his love of the natural world has left him very much at home studying the wildlife of Dorset’s rivers.

A lifelong conservationist, Miles’ angling passions have led him to champion fish as a species he says has been overlooked by wildlife experts in favour of more visible creatures.

“No wildlife films or magazines acknowledge that fish are a vital part of the eco-system. Without fish there would be no otters, or egrets.

“I’m surprised at the wildlife people. They are beautiful creatures, but difficult to see because they are underwater. I’m trying to redress the balance,” he said.

His latest project is a film about Wimborne’s River Allen, a watercourse he describes as among England’s finest chalk streams and a constant source of fascination to residents compelled to stop and stare into its crystal waters as they cross the town’s many bridges.

Working with the Dorset Wildlife Trust, his films will support their Dorset Wild Rivers Project to restore chalk stream habitat across Dorset, including wetland, fens, and grasslands around the Frome and Piddle Valleys and the chalk stream tributaries of the Allen, Stour, Tarrant, and North Winterborne.

Miles has already won the support of supermarket giant, Waitrose, for a live television feed from the River Allen to a screen in their Wimborne store. He is full of praise for the Allen.

“It’s a beautiful and classic example of a chalk river. It has more white-clawed crayfish than any other river in Britain. We are trying to raise the profile,” he said.

Recent fishing expeditions to Sway Lakes and Dorset’s coastal waters have seen Miles return with a haul of roach, bream, and mackerel.

The enthusiasm in his voice is palpable as the conversation turns to the pleasures of fishing, the subtle game between man and fish whose victory, he says, lies in observing the fish at close range before releasing them safely back into their habitat.

“Line fishing – that’s exciting fishing,” he says, professing bafflement at anglers who pursue other methods in search of a catch. He’s similarly mystified by carp anglers ignorant of fishes’ sensitivity to vibration.

“I’m amazed by people who come carp fishing and start by hammering the pegs for their bivouacs, and you can see the carp climbing up the river banks to go somewhere else,” he jokes.

Fishing provides a busman’s holiday for a man whose professional life has been dedicated to capturing intimate portraits of wildlife.

“It just takes you so close to nature. Birds will come in close because you’re not threatening anything. You’re sitting there for hours at times when no sensible person would,” he said.

A lifelong passion for wildlife began during Miles’ childhood in Cambridgeshire where he sang in the choir at Ely School in pursuit of an early ambition to follow his father into the world of professional music. But a glimpse into the fledgling world of natural history television broadcasting showed him in an instant how he could make a career from a burgeoning passion for wildlife.

“I’ve been fascinated by conservation since I was at school. I went to school at Ely, surrounded by the Fens, which was an inspiring place to grow up. I worked in school holidays on conservation programmes.

“Wildlife was just starting on television with Peter Scott and David Attenborough. I saw Eric Ashby’s first film with him filming badgers. I thought, ‘That’s the job for me!’ It was like a strike of lightning,” he said.

Aged 17, he began a year’s training with the BBC before completing a three-year course at a film college in Guildford. Returning to the BBC, Miles would hone his craft on The Two Ronnies, Z-Cars, John Pertwee-era Dr Who, before leaving to head up the RSPB’s film unit, and to a pre-eminent career as a wildlife cinematographer with a credit roll that includes some of the finest natural history productions.

Tiger, Life in the Freezer, the Secret Life of the Plants, and The Discovery of Animal Behaviour: In Praise of God, are among productions on which he has earned an impressive reputation.

Selecting highlights from such a glittering career is a challenge, but Miles concedes that winning a BAFTA for Tiger was ‘pretty amazing’ and lists habituating a puma during a two-and-a-half year filming project in the Andes of southern Chile as among his finest hours.

“In the end, she would go to sleep 20 feet in front of me, and allow me to walk beside her while she was on a hunt,” he said.

So after such exotic assignments, can he still be genuinely excited by the prospect of wading through a chilly river in Wimborne?

“It’s exciting finding new things and sharing that excitement with the public. Basically, what you’re doing is saying, ‘This is amazing. This is wildlife’.