Foreword: After returning from South America, I only had a short time until I needed to move out of where I was living, and would be staying in a different region of the UK for another short while (before then moving back to Pembrokeshire for a month, and then moving on to Australia!). I didn't have long enough to get a proper job before moving, so instead I did voluntary work for my local Wildlife Trust.
I often used to worry that ‘home’
would seem really boring after travels to exotic lands, but in actual fact I found
that, after a few trips abroad, I actually gained more appreciation for what we have
right here. I wonder why? I think maybe it’s because I’m learning to look at
things differently :)
With free time on my hands, I decided
to look for some voluntary work in countryside conservation. I have always been
interested in nature and the countryside. I’d done voluntary work for various
countryside organisations (Wildlife Trusts, the National Park etc) when I was
younger, and had even studied countryside management at college for a bit
before having to leave to find paid work. (I later saved up and went back to
college then on to University to do something different).
I looked up my local Wildlife Trust,
which from where I currently live is Berks,
Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust. The Wildlife
Trusts, 47 in total, are all over the country and cover geographical areas.
They “stand up for, and look after, natural and wild places close to where
people live”, carrying out conservation, habitat management and educational work.
As charitable trusts, they are all dependent upon donations and they also make
good use of volunteer workers.
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| College Lake |
I found a nature reserve not too
far from where I live, and although on the website it said that their volunteer
work parties were currently full, I immediately wrote an email to the contact
given. I got a reply the following morning, and after a couple of emails back
and forth I had arranged to pop in that afternoon for a chat. Driving out to College Lake nature
reserve I crossed from one side of the Chilterns to the other, a drive through
some beautiful countryside. Owain, the warden, was a young guy who was clearly
very passionate about his job and very knowledgeable. We had a lot to chat
about with common interests in nature and travelling, and the outcome was that I
decided to go back the following day to join the Wednesday work party.
After our chat, Owain loaned me
his binoculars and I spent an hour or so enjoying the reserve. College Lake is
an old chalk quarry, which was opened in order to supply a nearby cement works.
Now flooded, the old quarry is a hugely important site for wetland birds, while
the surrounding chalk grassland is very important for the UK's declining wildflowers
– and subsequently the butterflies, bees and other insects that rely on these,
therefore supporting further up the food chain with small mammals and birds of
prey and so on.
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| I might be a bit old for a 'Duck Detective' sheet, but it did help! |
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| Tufted ducks |
Being early spring, the wetland
area still has birds that are winter visitors, as well as new arrivals coming
for the spring and summer. I’m not a bird watcher or ‘twitcher’, but I do enjoy
seeing birds and knowing what they are, and I appreciate if I see something
rare or unusual. I therefore picked a leaflet that was designed for kids,
but provided a guide for the different duck species that were around. My favourites
were the tufted ducks, which I just think look so cute, and the shoveler ducks,
which just look really interesting with their strangely shaped beaks.
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| Shoveler duck |
On the way home I drive past part
of the Ashridge Estate, owned by the National Trust. Here I saw an impressive
herd of deer, although with fading light the photos are less than impressive… I
think these are Roe Deer, a species native to Britain, and I got out of the car
and approached carefully behind the cover of some trees and scrub to get a better
look at them. They look beautiful, elegant but nervous, I don’t get too close
as they would only run off, but am content to look from a short distance and
they gradually start to relax a little. I could stay much longer, but I have
things to get back for so reluctantly I head back to the car and home.
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| Roe deer |
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| Roe deer |
The next day I return to College
Lake to join the work party, carrying out practical tasks for maintenance and
habitat management around the reserve. The tasks for the day start with
shovelling and shifting wood chippings to help with path areas that have become
boggy with all the rain that’s fallen. Then we set to work on scrub clearance,
some cutting and others moving to keep an area clear of the scrubby bushes and
small trees. It may seem strange to be cutting down trees and things in a
nature reserve, but this particular area is at the top of a bank of chalk which
is part of the site designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)
for its geology. This SSSI status means that it must be preserved as well as
possible, so they have to ensure that the root systems of the plants don’t
disturb the delicate chalk geology below. It’s a fine balance though – you don’t
want to get rid of all the roots as this means there is no protection from soil
erosion!
We broke for lunch and ate our
sandwiches in the sunshine. There was plenty of cake too, as it happened to be
the final day for a couple of volunteer veterans of 12 years, who were moving
back to their (and my!) home county of Pembrokeshire, Wales the following week.
Lunchtime over, as there was a newbie in the group Owain took us all on a tour
of the reserve. As a newbie, this introduced me to the scale of the place and
the habitats within, as well as teaching everyone a bit more about the
management strategies for different ones. Plus, the volunteers get to see their
work in context and see how their contributions help.
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| Results of some hedging done previously by the volunteer work team |
We carry a telescope around with
us on the walk, and every now and then we stop to look at the wildlife. We see
some early butterflies, a buzzard and a kestrel. Someone with very keen eyes
spots a hare – I see it through the scope, sitting down in grass with its ears
flat down its back, but it’s too far off for me to get a picture. I love
rabbits and grey squirrels, but I really love our own native wildlife and want
to appreciate it more in the time I have left in the UK, so watching this hare
feels very special.
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| Not my photo, but this hare is sitting just like the one we saw |
We look at the birds again too,
lapwings, red shanks, snipe, the various species of duck: tufted ducks,
gadwalls, lots of wigeon and a couple of shovelers. College Lake is hugely
important for lots of bird species, and makes home for a third of the Lapwings
in the county as well as significant proportions of other bird populations. While
this is great news that these handsome birds have somewhere ideal to live, it
is also a sad indicator of the decline of these species in other areas.
I look forward to returning and
learning more the following week, I find it so interesting and rewarding.
Afterword: I continued working at College Lake for all of the time I had left in the south of England. It was great fun and I got to work with some lovely people. Although I didn't have long there, I felt so welcome that I was really sad to leave it behind when I had to move. I totally recommend this kind of volunteer work to anyone who can do it, as it's so important and rewarding.
