Guest blog by Benjamin Weigelt, Portmore Lough residential volunteer
For me as a foreigner in the UK, it was completely different to come here as it was my first time visiting Northern Ireland.
It was actually the first time I had ever flown in a plane. Despite some difficulties at the start of my trip (I missed my flight from London!) everything has turned out just great.
The first few days I started my volunteering work at Portmore Lough it felt like I was on a holiday. For one thing, in Germany I usually start my day at 7 or 8 o’clock in the morning, instead of 9am!
I am a biology student so the aim of my trip is to get practical experience abroad, to see how to conserve nature but also to travel, leave my comfort zone and explore other parts of Europe. It has also helped me improve my language skills, understanding and writing English – altogether gaining more experience for my future.
My expectations about the work I would be doing here included surveying birds, observing them and protecting their habitat. However, we have also carried out moth, butterfly, dragonfly, damselfly and even bat surveys, meaning my expectations have been well exceeded.
For me as a long term volunteer, it is especially nice to see how the seasons change. I started in July when the last lapwings and snipe left their broods and I was lucky enough to see lapwing and snipe on my first workday. Never before had I seen these birds in the wild – it was fascinating.
It was not easy to learn all the English names of the birds but with continuous and patient studying I managed to learn a lot of them. The same procedure was carried out for the English names of butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies and moths. The survey I enjoy most is the moth survey; we are still doing this survey on a weekly basis. Each time it is amazing to identify the different moths which we have not seen before. It is a miracle how beautifully these moths have been created.
I could write a lot more in detail about what I felt, what I saw, what I did. I think it could fill a whole book!