April brings the sixth anniversary of the death of Nick Gordon, the natural history film maker. Nick was born in London but as a small child moved with his family to Blackpool and came to regard himself as very much a Lancastrian. Nick was a remarkable man, a self taught photographer whose passion for filming the natural world drove him to make the Amazon rainforest his home for more than a decade.

It was in South America and Africa that Nick made extraordinary wildlife documentaries that gave viewers the chance to see animal behaviour that had never been seen before. The zenith of his achievement is probably the one hour film, Jaguar: Eater of Souls, that revealed the life cycle of this beautiful, deadly and highly elusive predator. The film took seven years to make and at great risk - Antoinetta, Nick's Brazilian assistant who would become his second wife, was badly wounded when a jaguar bit and clamped on to her leg.

Nick's adventures in the real world invited comparison with those of the fictional Indiana Jones. When his river boat capsized in a hurricane it was driven to the shore when it collided with a floating tree. Filming endangered species in Sierre Leone he too became threatened with extinction when Liberian rebels attacked the village where he was staying.

Nick was a clever and entertaining man whose premature death robbed the world of a great talent and more great films. He fell victim to a heart attack in Venezuela as he started work on a new film about giant tarantulas. You can watch a profile of the man and his work by clicking here.