Friends' love of nature shared in YouTube films
Two aspiring wildlife presenters have started their own YouTube series aimed at celebrating nature in the West Midlands.
Ryan Eddowes, from Wolverhampton, and Adam O'Hare, from Birmingham, said they wanted to the spread the word about the benefits of seeking out nature on your doorstep in their Wild West Midlands films.
The friends have been working on their second short film in Pendeford Nature Reserve, near Wolverhampton.
"It's really important for people to know about these places, these hidden gems," Eddowes said.
"People that work in retail and businesses and things that don't really connect with nature in that way, that they can actually, in their break times, go outside for five or 10 minutes and realise what nature is all about," he added.
"We are so now disconnected because we work in these business areas and industrialised areas that we don't realise, actually, that you need to go on that 10 minute walk just to reconnect back to nature and forget the stresses of modern life."
Geography school instructor Eddowes, who had a below knee amputation in 2024, said he also wanted to highlight the importance of how accessible nature was for people.
"Being someone with a disability, a lot of the time people presume if you have a disability, you can't get out into nature, you can't access it, when it actual fact, there's so many places you can go," he said.
"The main thing I'd love from this series filming with Adam is just inspire people and we just want to make it where you can watch it, have a laugh and go and explore what's out there."
O'Hare, who works in hospitality, said the pair who were "both laid back and gel well together", would focus on places in and around the West Midlands that not many people may have heard of.
"A lot of people from the West Midlands just assume that a lot of it is just concrete jungle or there isn't many green spaces because there is industrial estates," he said.
"You don't have to travel far for wildlife, especially in the West Midlands.
"It doesn't take you too long on a bus or a train - even cycling - to some really good nature spots."
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