Hi everyone
A much anticipated update from Northern Ireland and my wetland habitat management apprenticeship! I have been doing everything from invasive species removal to Plantlife survey work and bird surveys. I have been very busy these past few weeks, travelling through Scotland and England fully exploiting my travel expense allowance to work on various wetland sites. I found there was limited experience to be had at home especially at this time of year so I decided to arrange placements outside of Northern Ireland. I headed for Scotland mid July to work for a couple of weeks at Insh Marshes, an RSPB reserve near the Cairngorms National Park. After meeting John for a pint of Guinness in Sterling and a relaxed chat about my apprenticeship I set off for Insh Marshes.
It’s a fantastic example of a natural floodplain system and one of the most important wetlands in Europe. I worked together with the reserve staff and residential volunteers on various tasks including fencing, scrub removal and burning on the grazing marshes. I had the opportunity to learn a lot about moth trapping and identification during my stay attending a Butterfly Conservation outing and talk.
I hitched a lift down to the BioBlitz on the beach in Ayrshire, which I thoroughly enjoyed! I spent my time identifying juvenile gulls, playing in the dunes chasing butterflies and trying to identify beetles. On the Monday, the Big on the Beach event was a great success. We trapped butterflies and beetles and pond invertebrates to show the local biodiversity to the local people. I had a great laugh watching a giant dor beetle take off like a helicopter and terrifying everyone in the tent.
My next placement was at Abernethy reserve near Boat of Garten in Inverness-shire. I spent a few days there looking at the management for their wet woodland and joining in on tasks like winching trees and fixing deer fencing. The black grouse surveys were still ongoing so I joined in to watch an Irish white & red setter do all the hard work of scaling the moorland trying to find the birds, which of course we never found. Although I did manage to spot the tail feathers of a male as he flew off through the bracken. Continuing on from Abernethy I headed down to Yorkshire and to Blacktoft Sands reserve. It is a tidal reedbed system managed for waders, wildfowl, bitterns and bearded tits. I was involved in reed cutting, stock management and people engagement activities, along with confusing a WeBS count (too many little brown waders).
I’m now back in Fermanagh, awaiting chainsaw training which I’m a bit nervous about. I’m heading to the RSPB Wardens conference in York this month. I’m hoping to head back to Scotland at the end of this month to deliver a bird identification course with Kieren.
Thanks again for reading my blog!