Introducing Twiggy: our Red Squirrel superstar with an important message

Meet Twiggy the Red Squirrel, voiced by me, Annabel Rushton 😊
With Wild Haweswater being home to Naddle Forest, one of the last remnants of temperate rainforest in the Lake District, complete with resident Red Squirrels, I was delighted to be asked by the Environment Agency to voice Twiggy – an animated Red Squirrel character, with a powerful message. She’s one of four lovable creatures who have recently starred in new animations all about natural flood management (NFM). Read on to find out more….

What are these films?

The ‘stop-motion’ animated films called ‘Even Wilder Ideas About Flooding’ have been produced this year and launched today, as a sequel to ‘Wild Ideas About Flooding’ – the original award-winning films you may remember from 2022.

These new additions are the result of an exciting collaboration between Cumbria Wildlife Trust and Cumbria Innovative Flood Resilience project, funded by the Environment Agency’s £200m Flood and Coastal Innovation Program. They have launched this new series of Creature Comforts-style animations today, showcasing how NFM can protect communities from flooding, enhance biodiversity, and combat climate change.

Natural Flood Management (NFM) is a term for a variety of landscape restoration techniques used to hold water back during flood events, which reduce the impact downstream on communities and infrastructure such as bridges. It’s one of the driving factors behind a lot of our work at Wild Haweswater – from planting thousands of trees to re-wetting peat bogs and re-wiggling rivers – all of which help slow down the flow of water in the landscape, and something that we recently won the Ashden Award for Nature-based Solutions for.

Who was involved?

The films have been a real collaborative effort, involving us at Wild Haweswater, the Environment Agency (EA), Westmorland and Furness Council, National Farmers Union (NFU), Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), United Utilities, and the National Trust, and funded by the EA. These captivating short films are narrated by a cast of wonderful wildlife and demonstrate how working with nature can reduce flood risks, improve water quality, and build climate resilience for homes, businesses, and farms across the region, while also supporting biodiversity.

Who are the main characters?

Twiggy the Red Squirrel, Milligan the Hedgehog, Pat the Cow, and Gill and Isla the Salmon take you on an educational journey through the methods and benefits of NFM, from improving soil absorption to removing obsolete weirs and dams.

The four characters are narrated by distinctive northern accents from those working across Cumbria, including me (Annabel Rushton) as Twiggy, Rachel Oakley from the National Trust at Wild Ennerdale as Milligan, Catherine Evans from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency as Gill and Adam Briggs from the National Farmers Union as Pat, with supporting, additional voices from the Environment Agency, United Utilities and Cumbria Volunteer Service.

“These terrific films illustrate just how many benefits there are to working with our landscape and nature, we not only reduce the devastating impacts of flooding, but enhance our water quality, improve the biodiversity of our country and create richer places to live and work. We can do all of this and at the same time not only reduce the impacts of climate change but actively reduce the release of carbon. Talk about a win win!

David Kennedy, from the Environment Agency (who wrote the films and is the voice of Russell the dog and Gregory the Woodpecker)

What do the films show?

The techniques explored in these films include improving soils ability to absorb water, so it is less likely to run off into rivers; removing old and dangerous weirs and dams, the benefits of trees and their ability to reduce the impacts of rain even in large storms, and what people can do to their own homes and gardens to reduce their impacts.

  • Wood you believe it (3:45) Twiggy the Red Squirrel, talks to us about the huge benefit trees provide not just in reducing the impacts of heavy rain and flooding, but also in combating the effects of climate change, and creating cool spaces during times of high temperatures as well as the myriad of species that they support.
  • Home & dry (5:06) Milligan the Hedgehog explains how we can alter our gardens and homes to limit the impacts that storms can have in communities and that these actions not only reduce our flood risk but also improve water quality and make our gardens richer in wildlife.
  • It doesn’t have to cost the earth (3:44) Pat the cow talks about how changes in farming practice can make big differences to flooding whilst at the same time improving farms’ resilience to flood and drought. Whilst also protecting one of the farms most valuable assets the soil, helping combat climate change.
  • Dam fine ideas (4:15) Gill and Isla the Salmon, give us their view of how old weirs and dams heavily compromise their ability to migrate up our rivers and how removing these structures reduces the risk flooding, enhances the biodiversity and helps our rivers to become more natural.

Who made the films?

StudioDOK: Founded by Cadi Catlow, the studio brings years of acclaimed animation work, and the team included Chris Hopewell (Art Director), Rosie Brind (Production Manager), Chris Maris (Director of Photography), Holly-Jo Beck (Modelmaking & Backgrounds), Jacky Howson (Stop Motion Animator), Bryony Catlow (2D Animator), Niamh Farragher (2D Animator), Linnhe Harrison (2D Artist), and Tim Sassoon (Compositor).

“Making this film was an absolute joy for me because it combined two of my personal passions – wildlife and research! Twiggy was built as a lifesize, anatomically correct puppet with a huge amount of attention to detail, right down to the number of toes on each foot, though her face was gently worked into a slightly cartoonish direction around the eyes and mouth to help with the animation. Her cheerful, expressive voice actually belongs to a real expert working in the field, and the character animator used this as a great foundation for adding bags of extra personality through physical performance.

“This film is one of four we shot on Bristol harborside, using a small crew of fabulous people, all committed to sharing the important information around flooding, climate and protecting our natural habitats for future generations. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it!”

Cadi Catlow, Director

Most importantly, where can you watch them?

Click on the headings below:

Twiggy the Red Squirrel – Wood You Believe It?

Milligan the Hedgehog – Home & Dry

Pat the Cow – It Doesn’t Have To Cost The Earth

Gill and Isla the Salmon – Dam Fine Ideas

All the films, including the four original Wild Ideas About Flooding films, featuring Russell the Sheepdog (farmland), Pete the Frog (peat bogs), Brooke the Otter (floodplains) and Fin the Salmon (rivers) can be found here.

– Blog by Annabel Rushton, RSPB People and Partnerships Manager for Wild Haweswater. Posted 28 October 2024.

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