As a boy I had spent a lot of my weekends fishing from the sea cliffs and beaches of my home island with my father. The cliffs around our island were the home of a diving bird known as a Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis).

These are smaller cousins of the much larger Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) which are excellent fishing birds which dive deep underwater swimming after and catching fish.

I had heard and seen on documentary television Far Eastern fishermen training and using Cormorants to catch fish. It seemed prolific in some parts of Japan, China and Vietnam.

Perhaps it was the mix of fisherman and falconer in me, but this means of hunting just fascinated me. So when I was down in Yunan in Southern China and learned that there were still fishermen who earned their living this way I just had to find them.