A life-size painting of a grey-whiskered man in tweed hangs above the fireplace in the main meeting room at RSPB headquarters, at Sandy in Bedfordshire. Author and conservationist Conor Mark Jameson explores why W H Hudson is there, how this impoverished immigrant from South America rose to prominence in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, what his contribution was in the early stirrings of conservation activism in the UK, his place in literature, and how his legacy can still be felt today.