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convictions for egg collecting.

And he was a fairly

outspoken Yorkshireman,

and he was once being interviewed

by a TV crew about this.

I am a conservationist

at heart,

although it wouldn't appear

so from the hobby I pursue.

[Guy] He ran this campaign

of terror for over 20 years,

and he rampaged around the UK,

taking eggs of very rare birds.

He was often seen as

public enemy number one.

[male reporter] I believe I'm right

in saying that as many as 70

clutches of chough have been taken

by this particular egg collector.

They take those

choughs' eggs away.

And the chough's

not a common bird.

That puts me in a position, if

I want to carry on collecting,

that I have to replace

some of those eggs.

So inadvertently, the RSPB,

by confiscating the eggs,

are doing more damage

than what they would

if they left the owner

with the possession

of the eggs.

Seeing Colin Watson, you'd

interview him, you'd think,

"Whoa, that's the man, that." You

know, he's the, like, father of it all.

Whoa, great, you know.

I'll climb the tree

and check this nest,

and you'll wait at the

bottom of the tree, okay?

[John] Towards the end of his

life, he wasn't collecting eggs.

But he'd gone into just

photographing eggs in nests.

[Guy] He climbed up to look

into the nest of a sparrowhawk,

a bird of prey,

and he ended up falling out of

the tree and dying as a result.

[Mark] Watson was kind

of before my time.

But in the last 15

years, I've been

investigating some of the most

serious egg collectors in Britain.

The most infamous current collector

is a man called Matthew Gonshaw.

This man cannot

stop taking eggs.

He's totally obsessed by it.

[Done, Done, Done playing]

[song ends]

[tweeting]

My name is Matthew, and I

was a convicted egg collector.

I got convicted of

collecting birds' eggs.

I mean, Matthew

came to our notice about

eight or nine years ago.

And since that,

he's been caught,

I think now, at

least four times.

When I got caught the first time,

it didn't stop me starting again.

I went out collecting again.

I was even collecting when

I had the tag on me ankle.

At the end of the day, if someone wants

to go out and collect eggs, they will.

It's almost like he's putting the finger

up at the authorities and the RSPB.

He's like, "You're not gonna beat me. I'm

gonna carry on doing what I want to do."

Sometimes I think, "[omitted]

the police, as well," you know?

The balaclava comes off.

Yeah.

Golden eagle eggs from a

nest on the Isle of Lewis

were among more than 600

stolen by a prolific thief.

Matthew Gonshaw, one of the most notorious

wild bird egg collectors in the UK,

is believed to have raided

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