Wildlife Champion - Amy King
By Amy King
In January 2020, the tricky decision to retake the first year of college left my life with an unfamiliar period of nothingness. Ahead stretched months, blank. As a budding wildlife filmmaker, I turned this obstacle into an open opportunity. Spring was just around the corner, meaning my favourite filming spot (now accessible by train thanks to my 16-17-year-old's rail card) was about to be packed with possible subjects. Warnham LNR would be full of bluebells, blue tits and bumblebees. I was to create a documentary creatively named “Spring”. Armed with my trusty camcorder and tripod, I started to film the start of the season. I’d even bagged permission to put my trail camera out from the rangers. Soon, the first pictures of deer and Badgers had started to appear on my YouTube channel.
Of course, none of this would last - Covid brought a SARS-shaped sledgehammer to my schemes. Any attempts at creating a documentary about the Horsham reserve in transition had been scuppered. My trail camera was left abandoned miles away. Stories of renewal were left with it. For the second time in my life, the months ahead were blank. As any 17-year-old self-proclaimed terrible amateur wildlife filmmaker would do, I quickly pivoted to a different project. I was going to create a new documentary, and unlike the last few failed attempts, this time I had the fool-proof plan of raiding my own archives.
Over the previous two years, I had spent the occasional few hours at Warnham filming whatever I could find. From Coots to dead Shrews, nothing was off the table. Twenty-two of these two-minute shorts of varying quality would form the backbone of my upcoming masterpiece, with some of the “Spring” stuff sprinkled in for spice. Armed with the basic understanding of Premiere Pro, and way too much free time, I cut together my first 20-minute film. I’d even convinced my sister to narrate it. My magnum opus titled “Warnham: A Wildlife Documentary” was heading for a September release.
OK, maybe I’m being a bit dramatic. Even back then, I didn’t think this project was that impressive on a technical level. There are flaws here and there; plenty of things I would do differently now. But as a milestone, as the culmination of my childhood creativity, there are still things about it that I am happy with - the music, some of the close-ups, the way the sections flow, it’s the little things. As for my trail camera, the summer lifting of lockdown finally let me swap out its internals. A fresh start at college also meant I was able to visit Warnham more often, and so I kept my trusty trailcam out in the field. I was more or less constantly posting a new trail camera update to my YouTube channel every month, well into the new year.
Being nominated for the 2021 David Streeter award was a surprise. A welcome surprise, of course, (which made a change to the recent trend). My nominators were Tamara and Tom from the Gatwick Greenspace partnership. I used to be a regular at their 12-16 Wildlife Rangers sessions, something that Covid, (and let’s face it, my age), had scuppered. They gave four years of service between their two groups and my film as rationale for their nomination.
Surprisingly, I won.
I think back on being awarded the David Streeter award as being a much-needed boost in self-esteem. As an anxiety-riddled teen, I used to really struggle with my place within the youth nature space. Growing up, I was seeing a lot of people my age in the limelight. The rise of blogs and social media meant that it was easy to keep tabs with the achievements of other wildlife-obsessed teenagers. Some of these things were really impressive, such as meeting celebrities and writing books. I’d always shied away from any kind of attention, (there is a reason why I prefer being behind the camera), however it was hard not to compare myself to the others. Those better. Those more.
It feels kind of silly looking back now, but I think it is important to realise how easy it is for today’s kids to make these kinds of comparisons and feel inadequate. At the time, getting recognition from the wider Sussex Wildlife Trust helped to build my confidence, something I was severely lacking.
The award came attached with £250 worth of book tokens, which I naturally found a way of spending on a new trail camera. In an ironic twist, my original trail camera’s screen broke whilst I was experimenting with the timelapse feature. It was stuck in a completely unusable mode, and so its replacement helped with continuing the Warnham trail camera project for a little while longer. Eventually, with both cameras and a spare afternoon, I figured out how to reset the settings. Today, my growing collection of trail cameras can be found across Sussex and beyond.
The David Streeter Wildlife Champion Award 2025 is open for nominations
Watch wildlife filmmaker Amy King at The Deneway Nature Reserve.