If you like diving our inland waters, you'll enjoy this short film. Dean Burman treats Stoney Cove as if he was a BBC team tackling the Pacific, and revels in shots of marauding perch rounding up roach fry, and apex-predator pike lording it over the lake's humbler inhabitants.
Stoney (with top-up footage from other lakes) looks quite idyllic through the lenses of the self-styled "Diving Decorator" (his paint-pots don't seem to leave much space for dive gear in his van). The film is well lit, and tied together with a good, informative script.
The life among the pondweed is more abundant than you may have expected, and
it's pleasant to be able to dwell on our own freshwater life for a change.
Burman's patience is repaid with footage of the pikes' courting and mating rituals, though the actual spawning takes place in his absence. The pike come over as more sensitive than their "pond devil" reputation might suggest.
The music is unobtrusive, though Burman's over-modulated narration voice gets a little wearing, but that's a minor criticism.
The 27-minute film is reinforced by a 10-minute "how it was made" feature, again in true BBC documentary style - basically this is pike action with added divers. Give it a shot.
Steve Weinman
Waterwolf Productions
www.waterwolf-productions.co.uk
DVD, 27 + 10min, £14.99
