Blogger: Lisa Robinson – Visitor Officer Intern, RSPB Minsmere

In light of the new internships that have been developed, I thought I’d tell you about my experience as an intern with the RSPB.

I’ve been an intern at the Minsmere visitor centre since early September. When I tell people where I’m working they tend to assume I’m outdoors all the time, getting hands on with conservation work. Not so! I’m pretty useless at practical work so fortunately for everyone I leave that to the Wardening Team...although I have attempted it a couple of times! More on that later.

My role at Minsmere started with me planning the Red Deer Rut viewpoint event: organising volunteers, sourcing equipment, and researching deer facts among other tasks. The deer rut event ran throughout October, and we had just under 2500 visitors over 5 weekends! After the deer rut, I helped plan the Christmas events at Minsmere, including the Christmas Carol weekend where a local school choir, a brass band, and an adult choir performed in the visitor centre.

As well as events, I work in all areas of the visitor centre: in the shop, at reception, and sometimes in the tearoom. I also help Ian with occasional media releases and do odd jobs for other members of the Minsmere team. Most recently I’ve been assisting with preparations for when we move out of the Visitor Centre and into temporary accommodation whilst improvements are made to the building.

I have had a couple of days helping Assistant Warden Katy and the “Land Girls” as they call themselves, working in the reedbed. Well, I say helping, but I’m almost certain I was a hindrance especially as I spent the majority of the time up to my waist in mud. It’s so sinky! I was warned about the holes, and advised to follow Charlie who is magical and never sinks. Despite this, somehow I managed to outstrip Lizzie as the most frequent faller. Nevertheless in the short periods when I wasn’t in a hole I was busy helping to rake the cut reeds into piles and burning them. This helps the regeneration and encourages wildlife including our precious bitterns to move in. Both days I helped out were really fun, especially the day we saw loads of bearded tits, and we were rewarded for our hard work with cake!

I’ve learned a lot of new skills whilst doing my internship, and I still have a couple of months to go. It’s a really exciting time to be at Minsmere with the Discover Nature project going on, and it’s convinced me that I definitely want to work for a conservation charity in the future.