Hey, Ash here, the wetlands apprentice based with SNH.
It has been a while since my last blog, so I thought I would take this rare opportunity of actually having some time to catch up!
What can I say, I seem to have been here there and everywhere over the past ten months, and it feels as though my feet haven’t touched the ground! Considering I’m a wetland apprentice however, most of the time they seem to be just sinking in!
The majority of my summer and autumn was spent conducting various plant, moth, flutterby and bird surveys, on Loch Lomond NNR, Flanders Moss NNR, as well as travelling to Argyll and Bute to work with the SNH NNR team on their raised bog of Moin Mhor and Glasdrum. I also spent some time working with the RSPB at Insh Marshes, a place I know well, and thoroughly enjoyed working with Pete Moore and Karen Sutcliff, both of whom are a wealth of information, and the kind of people who are really supportive and enjoy sharing their knowledge! Other parts of my work have invloved assisting with SRDP applications and the likes.
Moin Mhor (a raised bog) in Argyll really is an amazing place, and to be honest I didn’t want to leave! The flora and fauna are incredible, and for anyone that knows anything about damming drains on peat bogs, well…you have to check out this place. I have worked on a few bogs, including working at RSPB Forsinard Flows, and I have never seen anything like the dams at Moin Mhor! Some of them are over 25ft wide, and just as deep!!!!!! They had to use those hefty road side barriers that you get on motorways to brace the dams, as there is so much pressure behind them! The best thing about the place was, that even though I saw some of the biggest drainage channels that I have ever seen on peat bogs, the dams are doing their job, and the place is in great condition, it really is one of those wonder story’s in conservation, and a breath of fresh air! Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the dams with me, but you can be sure that I will post some in due course, I also don’t have my pics of the summer with me, woops, but I do have some snaps from the winter months, so I will leave the summer behind for now, and tell you about what I have been doing over the winter….
…And what a winter! I have lived in Norway and Colorado, and at times this year I thought I was back there. It has been beautiful, but I have felt quite sorry for all the wee beasties trying to make a living, survival of the fittest indeed!
It was about November time last year that I went to spend a month at RSPB Mersehead. The reserve is somewhat of a working farm, all arable, and farmed in such a way so as the returning Barnacle Geese as well as the passerines have a food in plentiful supply. Areas of the reserve have been flooded for the wildfowl, and it has the most extensive and complicated sluice system that I have seen. I have always enjoyed working with the RSPB, and it was good the get back to some proper estate maintenance work. I also got involved with their Natter-jack reintroduction program, the usual RSPB people engagement stuff (afraid it comes with the territory!), surveys, and the biggie… The RSPB managed to buy some land, just adjacent to the reserve. The land is consists of old arable fields, and the plan is to recreate habitat for wading bids, primarily Lapwing. Once I had heard about the Natter-jack and habitat recreation project, I got on the blower to my bosses at SNH to see if they were happy for me to stay on for a wee while longer, and I ended up staying for three months! Once again I was in as happy as a pig in muck. The wildlife at the reserve was in abundance, thousands of Barnacle Geese which were a joy to watch. I spent many a (very early!) morning, watching the Geese return form the Solway where they had been roosting, flying over head in incredible numbers, and I would find a nice quiet spot on the beach to watch them return to their roost. There was also an incredible Starling roost, in the reeds only 20ft from one of the hides, the highest count reached 18,000 strong, and with them being so close came the most amazing noise as they flocked. What with being so close to the likes of Dumfries, and the Borders, I still had an amazing feeling of wilderness at Mersehead, something which makes me feel, well, just right. I returned to SNH in the middle of January, and went right into the Greenland White-front Goose counts at Loch Lomond, yay! Again, more early mornings, but I like that, it’s the best part of the day! Looking out onto Loch Lomond form the southern end, with the Loch stretching out, the Trossachs covered in a think blanket of snow, the peace and quiet slowly turning into a crescendo of goose calls in time with the rising sun, I soon forgot that it was minus 10, and once again lost myself in the wonder of all things natural.
I have to keep reminding myself that this is a job! However that realisation is brought home by the fact that I still have to do office work to do! One of my papers involves writing a new management plan/proposal for an area of Loch Lomond NNR, which for me has proven to be a bit of a struggle, but I’m getting there and my mentors are being very supportive. I have also managed to get some more land based qualifications during my time here, and I’m hoping that those along with the experiences and knowledge I’m gaining from my apprenticeship will land me a job once I finish.
So much to write, muchos left out, much more to come, so little time! But I am sure it is the same for the rest of the apprentices, and I am sure that we can all agree that this experience is something that is priceless.
(Some pics, afraid not many of any substance!)
1) A view across part of mersehead. 2) Ripping out Blackthorn, gret fun!. 3) Jenny Wren
