Interview: Robert Fuller - 'Weasels: Feisty And Fearless'

Renowned wildlife artist Robert Fuller has had a busy few weeks. Alongside juggling preparations for an upcoming exhibition, footage from his garden is being used in a new BBC documentary.

Airing tonight at 8pm on BBC Two, ‘Weasels: Feisty and Fearless’ promises fresh insights on some of Britain’s most “elusive and secret mammals”. In between all this, he generously had time to sit down and answer a few questions on his work and ‘Weasels’.

From 9th November to 1st December his Thixendale gallery, near Malton, will host an exhibition which celebrates “the wildlife heroes hidden in the gardens, fields and hedgerows of our countryside”.

Away from his ‘Wildlife Worldwide’ series, with its zebras, lions and emperor penguins, this exhibition offers a careful look at the creatures that first sparked his love of wildlife painting, growing up on a farm not far from where his gallery is based now.

His near-photorealistic paintings blur the line between scientist and artist: a close observation of the critter in question always precedes picking up the paintbrush.

He likes to paint “every feather, every hair… in order to do each creature justice”. This careful observation is assisted by the remarkable camera set-up located in his garden. Over thirty hidden nestcams stream constant footage of barn owls, peregrines and kestrels, the best clips of which are then selected by Fuller for his blog.

It is precisely these nestcams that have made Fuller such an asset in the filming of ‘Weasels’, for BBC Natural World.

This programme will range across the mustelid family, looking at honey badgers and wolverines, yet some of the most groundbreaking footage comes from a garden in Yorkshire: “As far as I know, I am the only person in the world to have filmed inside wild stoat and weasel nests, recording them as they raise their families.” And it is also these cameras that have allowed him to pin down these slippery beasts for long enough to paint them- figuratively, of course.

But it isn’t only technology that keeps him on the trail of these elusive little animals. “Old fashioned tracking skills” are also important: “If you look carefully at the way the dew has been knocked off the grass in the early morning, you can follow the path a stoat or weasel has just taken”. Amazingly, even other animals assist: “I also listen out for bird alarm calls to alert me to their presence.”

Above all, Fuller is a tireless advocate for stoats and weasels, an appreciation that shines through in his touching portraits of Bandita, Twiz, and the rest of his garden’s mustelid population.

Despite having raised his own orphaned baby weasels, like little Fidget who appeared on The One Show back in 2017, he has still been surprised by the capacities of stoats and weasels in the process of filming. These “surprisingly arboreal” animals can “climb trees as well as any squirrel”, and in the water they are “like mini otters”, alongside being equipped with a range of fascinating adaptations.

Viewed in a negative light throughout history, he praises their combination of ruthless tenacity, and their endearing tenderness to one another. As with his new exhibition on British wildlife, he emphasizes the need for discovering more about the hidden wonders just beyond our doorsteps. “It seems that although stoats and weasels are very common mammals, we know more about the habits of snow leopards. It’s time to get to know them!”

This article was written by Gabriela Mancey-Jones.