I'm Robert Fuller and I'm going
to share my journey of how I bring wildlife art and film to people around the world. So this is me as a child and I spent most
of my time actually outside, looking at wildlife and these are pictures of me going fishing
with my brother and uh catching lobsters. So as I became more interested in wildlife I
started documenting it, by painting and drawing and this is what I was doing at age 14. Doing really
detailed drawings and by the time I was 15, that's what I decided I wanted to do as a career be
a wildlife artist. So after four years at art school I set up as a wildlife artist and by
my mid 20s I actually built my own gallery and her I was exhibiting a wide range of work
and getting thousands of visitors a year. But it wasn't just the gallery I was interested in. I was
actually interested in the landscape around me. So I was planting wildflower meadows, building
nest boxes for the owls and kestrels. [Music] So here's a video showing how I converted
a rundown farmstead into a wildlife [Music] haven. [Music] That was absolutely [Music] magic. So at this stage my main focus was the art
and actually studying these wonderful animals that lived around me. So I've always had a soft
spot for kingfishes and really love them, because they're so colourful and this was a mallard duck
with a freshly hatched duckling on a nearby pond. So this was a really interesting project
studying this peregrine on an industrial site. So I live quite close to the coast, so we've
got seabirds like these puffins and they're always a beautiful subject to paint. So people
often ask me how I combine my artwork with the filming I do today. So this video shows how I got
to know some rescue badgers, which led on to this [Music] painting. I've been watching
badgers for years, but it wasn't until I built a set in the garden that
I realized what happened [Music] underground. I heard about these Badger
cubs being handed into a rescue centre. So I finished off my setting the garden
that I was building and moved these guys in and it was incredible watching them.
Not only above ground but what was really important to me, was watching them underground
which is something I've never seen before. But what I really liked as well was when
there were sleep, at rest, badges just curled up together and that was really special. Because
they almost form as one, interweaving with one another. Badgers sleeping positions have
really amused me, while I've been watching these three badges in the set. But sleeping as a
circle is a very efficient use of retaining their body heat. I absolutely love painting badgers
and I've painted them dozens of times now, but this is a really different type of painting
for me, from curled up underground in the [Music] set. We are painting badgers at rest here, but we've
got to actually get a sense of that in the [Music] painting. So I'm going to take you
through some of my favourite subjects and these became really popular online too.
So this is one of the biggest projects I've been working on, kingfishers. So this is an
artificial nesting bank that I made and luckily the kingfishers took it up and started nesting
in it. So I started this project six years ago and then it was a photographic project. With
this unique setup, I was able to capture every stage of the process. From egg laying, to the
young chicks and that went right the way through to seeing the kingfishers fledging.
So after a successful photographic project, I wanted to capture this whole process
on film. And here's a short video of some of the [Music] results. [Music]
[Music] [Music] So another favourite subject of mine, is
barn owls and over the years I've done a lot of conservation work with them. Building
literally hundreds of nest boxes. Here's a clip of Gylfie and Finn, my local pair which
just shows how charismatic they can be. By the end of May Gylfie has been
brooding for nearly a month and she's getting [Music] restless. Later she leaves the
[Music] eggs and heads out to stretch her wings. This gives Finn a chance to take a closer look, he decides this egg should be over here. He can hear a chick inside, the hatching process has begun. Gylfie soon returns and isn't best pleased with
his [Applause] [Music] handiwork.
[Music] They're real characters aren't they? Next
we're going to look at their neighbours the tawny owls and this is a really special pair. I actually
use them to surrogate other chicks that are lost. This has been really successful and some years I'm
able to get as many as six chicks back into the wild. This next clip is about a tawny owl called
Luna and how I surrogated two chicks into a nest. Tawny owl Luna is caring for two young
chicks, but they're not hers. Sadly Luna's own eggs failed and I didn't know why. But after
passing a light through them, it was clear the eggs were not viable and would never hatch. Then two
tawny owl chicks were found and had to be [Music] rescued. All of these tawny owls were struggling,
but luckily I was able to [Music] help. So the owlets are in the nest and just listen to them calling. I've just got to watch
and wait now and hope Luna accepts him. Here she comes, she's coming straight in
and look at that, she's brooding them straight away. This is absolutely incredible,
I couldn't have hoped for a better outcome. That was one of my favourite moments with
the tawny owls, but another special bird that lives in my garden are these kestrels and
this was a particularly special story. How this male kestrel defied the odds and
raised his six chicks alone. This has been a truly unique story. I followed this
kestrel family all year, witnessing every moment as the pair chose their nest, laid
a clutch of eggs and welcomed six healthy chicks. Tragedy struck when Mrs Kes disappeared
and three chicks were taken into my care. But Mr Kes stepped up defying all
the textbooks as he learned to feed his family and eventually they
could be [Music] reunited. Mr Kes has worked so hard to care for his
[Music] chicks, with a bit of help from [Music] me. Despite a challenging
start all six chicks are [Music] fledged. [Music] What a success [Music] story! So
I've been following the bird of prey in my garden, but slightly further a field
in a wood nearby are these red kites and this was a project I've been wanting
to do for years. And last year I made it a reality. [Music] [Music] This is an award-winning photograph
that I took and these are sparrow hawks, my next subject. Now these are a fearsome
predator, with a really intense yellow eye. But I saw a really different side to
them, when I started filming them on a [Music] nest. [Music] [Music] So swans are quite a common bird in the UK
and usually I pick more challenging subjects. But when I started filming these swans
on the nest, I just saw how special they [Music] are. [Music] Oh look at that, the cygnets are nibbling
on some blossom, awesome, that's super [Music] cute. So it's amazing to see how my channels have
grown over the years, but it wasn't always that way. And I'm going to take you back to 2010 to show
you how it all started. So I started my social media channels back in 2010 and this caught
the eye of the BBC and before I knew it, I was co-presenting short films about wildlife. So a few
years later I was then involved with a worldwide program co-produced by PBS in America and the BBC.
And this was a natural world about stoats and weasels. And by February 2020 we nearly had 100,000
people following our social media, which we were delighted about at the time. But this was just
the start of a bigger project. So just as things were starting to get going March 2020 the UK went
into lockdown. And we really had to start thinking about restructuring the business, because we were
selling into many shops around the country that were actually closed at the time. So we really
started to concentrate on our social media. We started a newsletter called Solace in Nature for
our customers, and with all the TV companies locked down as well and not able to travel. This actually
gave me an opportunity and I was then presenting my own short films for the BBC ONE show. So it got
to August 2020 and this is one of our biggest achievements we started live streaming our
wildlife cameras. So we had wildlife viewers being able to see special behaviour like this. And
this is Gylfie the barn owl, just as her eggs were [Music] hatching. So just over the space of
one summer, our YouTube subscribers literally doubled so as we were getting more and more
people watching our live stream this brought its own problems. We had some people coming on
the chat causing trouble, so we bought in a team of voluntary moderators from around the world
that just kept an eye on the chat and just made it a really pleasant place for people to be. And
with this, the community really started to grow and people got really involved even voting for
the favourite names of all the owls. In September 2020 we hit the second lockdown and we actually
started a new project then, doing a lockdown live. So this was a daily broadcast where we brought
educational content to people all around the world and we also tried to make it a little bit of
fun. So at this stage the channels were absolutely booming, but what made this really special for us
here was actually seeing all of the letters and emails that we were getting of people that really
appreciated what we were doing. We had all sorts of things from parents with autistic children,
the only time they could get them to sit still , was watching our videos on our channel. And it was
really interesting to see how wildlife can bring people together, from all walks of life, different
religions, different countries and actually start learning and appreciating each other. And this is
one of our collaborations with a bigger channel The Dodo and this received 49 million views, the
story about Whisper and Stewart the stoats I hand reared. With our channel growing so fast we actually
needed help, so we partnered with ritual networks to advise us on best practice going forward. The
next stage was working with Bridge Digital to take my content to China. This gave me a chance
to reach a whole new audience and we have had such positive feedback from our Chinese viewers.
With lockdown lifted I was able to travel again and this was our first International film to
reach over a million views on YouTube. We started engaging with our community more and more and
as one of the barn owls was hatching her eggs we asked where people were watching from and we
got an incredible response. And it was amazing to see all the different places that people were
watching around the world. One amazing response was from Neils a bartender in the Netherlands,
the big screen in the bar usually show sports but Neils decided to show our live stream
instead and people were fascinated. It was stories like this that led to a media storm.
I ended up doing back-to-back interviews for a week right the way across the world. So at
this stage I've got over 1.2 million followers across platforms, which gave me the confidence
to go to Industry events and start approaching some bigger companies I wanted to work with. Off
the back of this, I was able to start to work with some big companies like Sony, DGI and Swarovski
Optics [Music] At this time I also met Wildfoot Travel, a UK based tour operator and we started
a partnership back in October 22. And since then, I've been able to travel to Panama, Svalbard
in the Arctic and also Zimbabwe. So that brings us up to date, who would have thought doing a few
videos on YouTube would lead to all of this. But it's been an incredible journey and now I'm here
speaking to you today. So we've definitely got an exciting future ahead and what I want to talk
to you next about, is our international travel. I've been lucky enough to travel all over the
world, visiting every continent. This short film is from the French Alps, most people go here
to ski in the winter but I go there to see the wildlife. This is absolutely incredible, [Music] I've got an ibex right in front of
me, down here feeding and there's a few females coming down the cliff [Music] to. I can't believe this, after 3 days of looking, I've got the smallest owl in Europe.
The pygmy owl, right in front of me now. Those little pygmy owls were really hard
to find, but we're going to go further a field now to Alaska. I travelled here in 2022 and I
was lucky enough to see the bears feasting on salmon. I'm Robert Fuller wildlife artist
and filmmaker and this is Katmai National Park. The salmon run is on and
there's bears everywhere out [Music] [Music]
here. The next international trip was to Panama and I started this collaboration when
visiting the Bird Fair in the UK. I love watching owls, wherever I am in the world. So it's great to see this
spectacle owl out in the wild in Panama. So this is absolutely amazing I've got
very rare crested eagle. This is incredible watching this young eagle. It's learning how
to hunt up there, actually grasping all the [Music] vines. I'm in the rainforest of
Panama and this is a harpy eagle nest. [Music]
[Music] This place is absolutely amazing, there's a
sloth in a tree here and I can see a little arm, she's got a baby tucked away in [Music] there.
They are actually touching noses and licking each [Music] other. My next trip was one extreme to the next
from, the heat of the Jungle to the freezing temperatures of the Arctic and one animal that
I'd always wanted to see was the polar [Music] bear. [Music] I'm Robert Fuller and I'm in Svalbard
in the Norwegian [Music] Arctic. [Music] So the female bear's just on the edge of
the snow there and she's got her two cubs with [Music] her. [Music] Wow that was absolutely amazing, what a [Music] sight. Thank you for watching and I can't wait
to bring you more wildlife content in the future. Thank you for watching and I hope
you enjoyed the video. Don't forget to like comment and subscribe to see more. Here's a
taste of what you'll enjoy seeing on this channel. [Music]
