Paradise regained in the New Forest: no planes, no people. Just one man and nature

A cameraman who recorded the lives of a goshawk family in the New Forest during lockdown saw them as a symbol of hope

There were moments last spring when wildlife cameraman James Aldred felt guilty about how lucky he was. Commissioned before the pandemic to document the lives of a family of goshawks living in the New Forest, Hampshire, he was given special permission to carry on filming while the rest of the country locked down.

“If there is an Elysium, or an afterlife, I would like to think it’s the middle of the New Forest during lockdown,” he says. “It was stunningly beautiful.”