Want to get to know a nature reserve well? Spend the night there! By Tom Clarke, SE Dorset Project Development Officer
I’ve been working for the RSPB in Dorset for six years. I don’t know RSPB Arne by day particularly well, having never been based there. But Since 2013, I have been leading Big Wild Sleepouts on the site and so I know it very, very well by night!
And what a noisy place it is! Nightjars, godwits, tawny owls, sika deer, oystercatchers and, sometimes, a wedding disco carried miles on the wind from the direction of Corfe Castle... And, then, there is the noise of us lot... with the best will in the world leading a group of 60-odd people around the tracks at RSPB Arne isn’t going to be silent. The crunching, the scraping, the tripping and slipping is all amplified by the darkness. The sound of marshmallowed-up children, so excited, nervous, anxious and scared to be out exploring past their bedtimes with their newly acquired (probably whilst hunting for bones) adventure buddies...is wonderful. And without the torch they have been itching to use ever since they heard they were coming (but are not allowed to use by me, because all children have itchy trigger fingers where torches are concerned and a night walk is no place for strobes – that should be reserved solely for the disco in Corfe Castle). The stories, the bad behaviour, the independent exploration, the shared experiences but, more than anything, the lifetime held memories of a positive nature experience, which you can visibly sense being imprinted on their brains - makes the cacophony not just bearable, but intoxicating.
And, gradually, along the adventure we do see and hear nightjars, and we do find glow worms, we feel the cool breeze on our tops and soothing heat coming from the warmed-up heath below, and we have a collective communal experience where we all think we are so lucky to have such a place on our doorsteps. So much so that eventually, (and as the sugar high ebbs away) everyone calms down and relaxes. Some stay quietly around the camp fire and, if lucky, see the fireworks of Poole Quay or, in August, the Perseid meteor shower. But most go straight to bed, zonked-out by the thrill of it all.
In the morning, I tend to get the reward for a terrible night of sleep permeated by the nightmare that I can’t get the campfire fire going and the fear that breakfast bacon is off the menu – which with a party of 60 people to feed, is an intense fear! And maybe made worse by my weariness and my smoky eyes struggling to focus - but despite all this, it is ever so beautiful watching the sun rising over my home town of Poole.And then the children get up and start talking at me (most aren’t interested in what I say back) full of energy, raring to go, charged up to the max by RSPB Arne.
Of course, not all of these children will go on to save nature (however, you define that), but you know that in the past 15 hours RSPB Arne has done its duty not only in giving nature a home to a fantastic diversity of rare species, but equally as important, it has given nature a home in the hearts and lives of hundreds of families that I have been fortunate enough to share a Big Wild Sleepout with.
All Photos by Tom Clarke