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THE school holidays are well under way. It's a time I used to love when I was a boy. As my knowledge of wildlife grew, so the opportunities afforded by the long, summer days were, seemingly, endless.

I've always been fascinated by nature. Even when I was a small child I could be found sitting in the field, just over the other side of the garden fence at our house in Devon, carefully collecting insects and other small creatures and putting them into any container I could scrounge.

An interest in the natural world is one of the most valuable gifts that can be bestowed on a child by parents or grandparents. With such an interest boredom is almost unknown.

It's not necessary to know the name of every plant, insect, bird or mammal - it's enough simply to want to discover more. What is needed if a child is to grow to adulthood with its senses tuned to the natural world, is to be in the company of someone who is enthusiastic. Identification can come from books, CDs, the Internet, television or radio, but it's so much better if a child can be shown how absorbing it is to watch ants scurrying to and fro on their busy lives, or see a butterfly or bee landing on a flower, or look at birds visiting a nest box or bird table or nut feeder.

Holiday travel in cars or trains can be livened up for younger children with a natural history eye-spy game. How many kestrels can be seen hovering over each mile (or kilometre) of motorway verge? How many different flower colours, or types of flowers (for older children) can be seen along the roadside? In summer, well-grown fox cubs often appear on railway embankments outside of town. I've seen them myself watching the trains go by while most of the other people on the train were oblivious to them.

Even now, I still have my favourite roads. The one that takes you across Salisbury plain holds particularly pleasant memories and I always experience a tingle of excitement as Stonehenge hoves into view among the thousands of acres of land that were once rolling downland, populated by sheep and shepherds and turbulent with the flocks of lapwing that used to flicker across the khaki-coloured grassland - the typical colour of ancient flower-rich, sheep-grazed sward.

I remember being taken by my father across the short, butterfly-rich grass to explore Stonehenge. At that time, large numbers of sheep were a major feature and the plain was still recovering from its role as a military training ground and invasion glider park after the end of the Second World War.

Up until the late 1950's and early 1960's, Salisbury Plain was an area of original chalk downland that had never been ploughed. There was no dual carriageway in those days either; the main road was quite narrow all the way from the outskirts of London to the West Country.

Stonehenge was erected by Late Stone Age farmers during the period of human expansion after the last Ice Age that saw the emergence of a culture with sufficient ingenuity and organisational skills - and the time - to create astonishing alignments using natural rocks, some of which were transported great distances sometimes over water as well as over land. These stone monuments occur over a large part of Europe.

There's another, not that far away, at Avebury and they are particularly common in France. At Carnac, in southern Brittany, thousands of stones are lined up like regiments.

One of the most fascinating aspects of archaeology, a marvellous area of study in itself, is the influence of humankind on the land. The area in which we live in Hertfordshire has been farmed and tended by people for a very long time indeed. Looking back over the history of our region, we can see evidence of Stone Age, Bronze and Iron Age cultures, The Romans, the influence of the monasteries and, later, titled landowners.

Throughout all this human activity, wildlife has adapted to or vanished from the scene. During the time of Queen Elizabeth I, common buzzards and red kites and several species of harrier would have been a common sight in our skies. Peregrine falcons too would have been an integral part of the bird fauna and kestrels would have been represented by more or less the same numbers as they are today - the large open field system of agriculture favoured in those days would have provided more than adequate hunting for this mouse falcon.

Probably, the hobby falcon would have been more commonplace in a landscape full of farms and small clean streams and ponds and the summer air full of the glossy wings of dragonflies, the favourite prey of the hobby falcon. Swallows and martins are also prey species for this most wonderfully aerial of all the falcons. Hobby falcons all but vanished in the 1960's because of overuse of pesticides but appear to be making a comeback, with sightings of their long scythe-shaped wings and slim bodies being reported from all over the region as they hunt cockchafers in the evening over parks and grassland.

I've studied hobby falcons for more than 20 years. They are summer migrants, appearing in spring with the first swallows and leaving in early October as the last of the hirundines leave for warmer African hunting grounds.

Roughly the same size as a male kestrel, hobby falcons can be mistaken for kestrels, especially if you only get a brief glimpse. But if you are in a position to observe them against an uncluttered background, you will clearly see the long, thin, swift-like wings, the slender streamlined body and short tail and, with binoculars and a good light you might even see the boldly striped underside, the dark, arrowhead-shape black markings blend into an uneven line against the white of the breast feathers and the slate-blue upper surface of the wing.

The males are quite colourful with rust-red legs and thighs that can sometimes look scarlet in good light. The females are less gaudy around the legs, but are equally beautiful and perfectly adapted.

They are the greyhounds of the skies. Sadly, the efforts of a few illegal falconers has meant it is not possible to disclose the best places to see hobby falcons, other than to say they are present all over our area and might be seen hunting over College Lake nature reserve and Tring reservoirs.

August is when hobby falcons encourage the youngsters to leave the confines of the nest, usually built on an old carrion crow's nest, and venture out on their first hunting expedition. The specialised diet of large insects and fast-flying birds means the parents have to train their young to catch prey on the wing.

Another bird that trains its young in a similarly spectacular way is the peregrine falcon. The parents lead the young falcons to the most likely place to find dragonflies or swallows. The fledglings sit in a good vantage point while the parents catch the prey and call to them. The youngsters then chase after the parents calling plaintively. The adults wait until the youngsters are close before sweeping upward in a spectacular climb and dropping the food.

The following youngster must catch the prey before it hits the ground or lands in the water. They soon learn how to do it and it's wonderful to watch them on a summer evening.

Hobby falcons are increasing in number in our area through the efforts of conservation and protection. But if you should find a hobby nest, keep the knowledge to yourself and don't try and climb up to it.

These birds are fully protected by law from disturbance or interference such as taking eggs or chicks.