A WILDLIFE artist based in North Yorkshire is celebrating this week after his YouTube channel reached 500,000 subscribers.
Robert E Fuller, shares live footage from cameras hidden inside animal nests in his garden and the countryside surrounding his home in Thixendale.
The videos allow viewers a close look into the day-to-day lives of the animals.
Robert said: “It’s amazing to think that so many people are engaged with the day to day lives of the owls, kestrels, and stoats that live here in Yorkshire.”
Subscribers to Robert Fuller’s YouTube channel tune in from all over the world and the livestreams are so popular they get an average of one million viewers a week.
Fans from as far afield as the Philippines, Pakistan, the US and Uzbekistan are so invested in the individual stories of the UK wildlife featured they have named the individual characters they watch.
As reported by the Gazette and Herald, Robert’s livestreams were even shown at a bowling alley bar in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which switched from sports coverage to the live feed of owls. A family also watched the webcams as they queued for the Statue of Liberty in New York.
In addition to the live streams, Robert creates short films about the animals.
He said: “We have a barn owl pair named Gylfie and Finn, a dominant tawny owl known as Bomber and a stoat called Hazel. Subscribers follow their stories almost as though they were tuning in to a soap opera.
“This year we watched a tawny owl mum, named Luna, raise two orphaned owl chicks after her own eggs failed and a male kestrel called Mr Kes learn how to brood and tear up pieces of food for his chicks– something male kestrels never normally do!”
The streams were launched in 2020 as a response to the isolation people were experiencing during Covid lockdowns.
“Filming inside animal nests was something I just did for my own research, to inform my paintings, but then when the pandemic sent so many people around the world indoors, I decided to share the footage online,’” said Robert.
“It was a difficult time and I realised how much watching the nests boosted my own morale, so I thought it would help others too.”
Within months of launching livestreams from the animal nests, Robert’s YouTube channel grew from 35,000 subscribers in January 2020 to 100k in September 2020 and the Youtuber earned YouTube’s much coveted ‘silver play button’.
“Now its 500k subscribers. I find it amazing how big a demand there is around the world for wildlife stories, and stories about British wildlife. Now I’m a filmmaker and YouTuber as well as an artist,” he said.
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