Until the last male golden eagle died in 2015, Haweswater, on the rugged north-eastern fringe of the Lake District, was England’s final refuge for the bird of prey. “Even now, whenever I go up Riggindale, it feels like something is missing,” says Spike Webb, a long-serving RSPB warden at its Haweswater site.
Although the eagles are no more, Haweswater’s wildlife is nowadays being given the chance to make a full-throated comeback, thanks to interventions made by the RSPB, in collaboration with its landlords, the water company United Utilities.
