Wildlife
at Tickwood
It has been our intention not only to create facilities for Open Air Teaching and in particular Forest School, but to use the very nature that exists, for the most part, deeper in the woods. Tickwood is what it is – the sum of all its parts and everything which survives within it.
Tickwood is an incredible venue for children and young adults with disabilities and/or learning difficulties. They visit for a few hours each week and are expertly coached and coaxed by dedicated teaching and communication professionals, who in turn make such special use of this environment. But Tickwood is also a supportive place for the survival and well-being of many different types of birds and wild animals, large and small, who have made Tickwood their home.
By making wildlife videos we hope we can show the kids the wonderful wild animals of Tickwood, who share the woodland of Forest School and who are never very far away.
The Tickwood estate lies on top of what could be described as a small plateau. Tickwood is both surrounded and part covered by woodland, which in turn is only broken by a collection of meadows and pastures where animals from Tickwood’s own farm lazily graze the days away.
The ground itself rises and falls in common with its geographical and geological surroundings at the north eastern end of Wenlock Edge, and is halfway between Much Wenlock and Ironbridge amid the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The historic woodlands also conceal more acute, micro versions of the terrain. The deeper and darker into the woods, the more steep sided hills descend into small, lush green valleys and where life here has hardly been disturbed for centuries.
We have found that Tickwood is also very much alive – 24 hours a day and thriving throughout the year. The Tickwood ecosystem appears to be working very well. Our wildlife movie has taken a year to produce. We used only a few inexpensive, motion activated, digital cameras. We tracked and followed the animals and observed their habits and preferences over 9 separate locations stretching in excess of a mile apart – some in which, it has to be said, we achieved more success than others.
Using 27 camera angles we captured over 3,600 video clips representing over 60 hours of video footage. Obviously these truly wild and wonderful creatures have minds of their own and don’t always appear in the right place, at the right time to pose for the camera, but we have managed to secure a few clips which we hope you’ll enjoy – just as much as we do. Welcome to the wild side of Tickwood. Wildlife. Filmed entirely in the historic woodlands of Tickwood.
