My second month at Singleton has seen Spring descend with a spectacular display of amorous of frogs and newts. Staff and volunteers at the centre are very proud of their pond and rightly so- it serves as a breeding pond for both great crested and smooth newts as well as a large frog population, whose noisy antics kept visitors entranced throughout most of March. Now that they’ve dispersed we’ve been left with a pond absolutely loaded with frogspawn; this will no doubt provide entertainment and education to our human visitors and a great food source for local wildlife in the months to come.
I’m really enjoying the seasonal variation in my placement so far. Much of the training and practical tasks to be undertaken are governed by plant or animal cycles; so whilst February was Tree Planting Month, March has definitely been Month of the Amphibians!
I’ve been on training courses with Kent Mammal Group and Kent Reptile and Amphibian Group so that I can undertake surveys with the groups I’ll be working with during my placement. I’ve also been familiarizing myself with citizen science resources from Opal, The National Plant Monitoring Scheme and RISC (Recording Invasive Species Counts) so that I can support groups in contributing to recording schemes which are relevant to their own grounds or local green spaces.The first groups I’ll be working with on citizen science projects are a troupe of Sea Cadets from Canterbury and a group of residents in Hawkinge. I’m really looking forward to helping them learn more about their wild spaces and develop plans for future habitat management.
I’ve been further practicing my I.D and surveying skills by getting involved with the work of local wildlife groups and I’ve met plenty of passionate people who give up their free time (often in horrible weather) to conduct surveys or give wildlife a helping hand. My favourite batch of wildlife hero’s in March has been the dedicated KRAG Toad Patrol crew, who scan the roads and collect toads in buckets to ensure they safely reach their breeding ponds. I’ve been helping out on my way home from work at Painters Forstal, near Faversham and also joined them in raising awareness of the Toads on Roads campaign by parading through the streets of Canterbury in full toad costume. I was pretty pleased with my toad head- made from an old dress and an out-of-date TCV hard hat (that’s me below) and we had a great time lollopping about in toad fashion amongst the Saturday shoppers.
I’ve continued to assist local TCV staff with practical conservation tasks around Kent and have really enjoyed my time planting trees with TCV’s Jadie Baker and The Wild Crew volunteers. The group have planted thousands of trees over this winter and have surveyed and recorded many more as part of the Heritage Lottery funded Kent Heritage Trees Project. Recently I’ve felt confident enough to begin taking more responsibility so in early March I led my first Wild Crew task day at Ashford Warren where we were working in partnership with Kent Wildlife Trust. Leading the task was a great opportunity for me to put my learning from the TCV Task Leaders course into practice with a group of experienced and supportive volunteers. The most challenging element of the day proved to be some overly friendly horses who wanted to eat every tree whip, tool and sandwich in sight. Despite this we managed to plant 300 trees, erect 100m of new fencing, collect rubbish from the hedgerows and sample some fantastic chocolate brownies that one of the KWT volunteers brought along.
I’ve also been getting out and about round Kent, visiting potential sites for community engagement projects. I’ve been tasked with undertaking 9 different projects across the Kent region so I’ve been really busy establishing contact with local groups and councils in order to identify sites that are in need of some TLC. I’ve been both amazed by the passion people have for their local spaces and deeply saddened by the state of others, which have become unofficial rubbish dumps and are avoided by much of the local population.
Some of my projects are now beginning to take shape; I’m going to be working with the Canterbury Sea Cadets to convert their rubble-strewn riverside site into usuable areas for recreation, community food growing and wildlife habitat and will also be working with residents groups in Hawkinge and Faversham to tackle littering and other anti-social problems in their neighbourhoods.
I’m really looking forward to collaborating with local orchard specialist Chris Williams on a project to train volunteers in grafting techniques and fruit tree maintenance so that we can distribute traditional Kentish varieties from exisiting old orchards to schools and community spaces across the region. I’ll also be working with The Up On The Downs Partnership to improve access routes, dual-language events and visitor information for the local Nepalese Community at key wildlife and heritage sites in the Folkestone and Dover area. I spent much of my time as a teenager exploring Folkestone Downs, so I’m delighted to be working on a project engaging people with one of my favourite wild spaces.
In the mean time- it’s school holiday time again so Singleton is set for two weeks of activities and family fun. We’ll be weaving and planting, nest building and bug hunting with visitors of all ages, so if you’re in Kent and looking for something to do- come and join us!