Only one day to go and my Caledonian Pinewood Apprenticeship will be over! It’s been an amazing twelve months at the pinewood patch and I’ve loved every minute of it, I can’t believe how quickly it’s flown by. It’s been like no other job I’ve had before or likely to have again. What other job gives you the opportunity to spend days on end looking for wood ant nests, inspire others to love their pinewoods, assist with scientific research and run international events?!
During my twelve months of pinewood madness I’ve managed to:
• Give 8 presentations, including a presentation at The Wood Ant Symposium
• Assist with a research project at JHI;
• Help to organise and run 5 events plus organise and run an international event (The Wood Ant Symposium);
• Process 2584 insect specimens;
• Find a total of 104 ant nests which were previously unrecorded;
• Find new records for Abernethy forest including 92 Formica exsecta nests, 1 new species of spider and 1 new species of fungi; and
• Attend 11 training courses!!
I could write pages and pages about all the wonderful things I’ve been up to; I’ve developed so many skills and gained so much more confidence in my own abilities, especially when it comes to giving presentations. This was something I hadn’t done a lot of before and there’s no better way to increase your confidence at talking to groups that having to give presentations to the public, school children, rangers, academics and conservationists. Giving a formal presentation at The Wood Ant Symposium was probably the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve done (talk about being thrown in the deep end), but I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot from it.
Something else I’d done so little of before was being involved in public events. Not only did I help out at Gardening Scotland, Celebrating Nature and the Insect Festival, which gave me insight into how these events are planned, organised and delivered but me and Alison Greggans designed and ran our own little two day “Bug-Tastic” event which was a fantastic learning experience. Helping to plan and organise the Wood Ant Symposium was not only good fun but has helped me develop invaluable skills and allowed me to network with other enthusiasts and experts.
Spending the whole summer in the Cairngorms National Park and hardly spending time infront of the computer was pure pinewood heaven for me, I couldn’t possibly list all the amazing animals and plants I’ve seen. My apprenticeship has definitely helped me improve my ID skills and I’ve developed interests for groups I knew next to nothing about before I started, like spiders and harvestman. I really hope I can carry on the hunt for ant nests next summer, who knows how many are still out there waiting to be discovered and admired. Plus there’s still so many pinewood beasties I haven’t seen and need to find out about!
Having the opportunity the fill your head with knowledge about the things your so passionate about, and then have the chance to pass on this knowledge and passion to others has been very rewarding. I really hope I’ve managed to inspire other people about insects and passed on a little bit of excitement for all things anty. I’ve been asked to lead a course on ants in May this year at Mar Lodge which I’m very excited about. What a brilliant opportunity to put my different skills – presenting, ID and fieldwork – into practice and pass on these skills onto others.
To top it all off, I had enough money left in my budget to buy a microscope, which arrived this week. This is fantastic as it means I can do all my own ID work – once I leave James Hutton I won’t be able to use microscopes there so having my own will give me a distinct advantage and will allow me to carry on practising my ID and make lots of records!!
I am so grateful to all of my tutors who have made my apprenticeship possible and so enjoyable. Jenni Stockan at The James Hutton Institute has been an excellent mentor throughout my apprenticeship and has been fantastic support and great fun to work with. Thank you Jenni for making me feel so welcome from day 1 and helping me feel part of the team. Shaila Rao and Andy Amphlett from Mar Lodge and Abernethy respectively dedicated a lot of their time to supervising me during my placements and I want to say a big thank you them for making me feel at home and valued during my stay. Of course, a special thank you has to go to John McFarlane, without him none of the apprenticeships would be possible, he’s made sure I’ve had everything I needed and has been brilliant fun to work with. Thank you all so much!
I’m very happy to say that I’ll be with The James Hutton Institute a little bit longer, not as an apprentice but as a Casual Invertebrate Assistant, working with entomologist Nick Littlewood for eight weeks on a project sampling grassland invertebrates.
I’m going to miss the BTCV Natural Talent gang very much, but we all get on so well I know we’ll keep in touch. Good luck to Claire and Hannah who are still busy their their apprenticeships until March, you’re doing a fantastic job, keep it up. Let’s hope there are some more Natural Talent’s coming out very soon!
Lots of love,
Hayley
Caledonian Pinewood Invertebrates