Jay's last blog!

Good morning to all,

It is with a heavy heart that I share the news that today is not only my last blog, but also my last ever day as a Residential Volunteer here on the Exe! I shall be trading these clay wetlands, abundant with bird life, for the chalky hillsides of Wiltshire where I grew up. It is only half past eight in the morning, and already Laura, Phill, and I, have had a number of poignant moments of ‘this is the last time we’ll be walking in together’ and ‘this is the last time I’ll be putting three pairs of socks on to try and keep my wellies on my feet!’.

But before I go too soft on all of you, which will happen in a minute you’ve been warned, what has been going on in the reserve this week?

Monday saw us attend the RSPB Southwest Winter Regional meeting in Longdown. It was a fabulous day with a series of mini talks including getting to know Nick Bruce-White, our new Regional Director, discovering about the Little Tern project at Chesil Beach, and rat eradication success on the Isles of Scilly. The day ended with a bang with a surprise panto performed by some of the staff, much to the audience’s delight and bemusement.

The performers take a bow – Phillip Catton

The rest of the week has been some hard work put in with some shovels relaying scalping stone, a gravel-like mix, on the floor of the workshop yard, the Powderham platform, and the bike racks by the car park. Our Thursday volunteers have also been doing important work of continuing attaching stock netting to the gates to keep out wayward dogs not on leads that go under the gates and disturb our resident birds.

Newly netted gate and wing – Justine Stephens

So here it is; the soppy part of the blog – bear with me. I’ve learnt so much in my time here – the most important ones I would like to share with you:

a) Metal is hard. Your hands won’t ever win in a battle against a hammer, or a nail, or really anything made of metal, it took me an embarrassingly long time to learn this one.

b) Water is wet. I survived my time on the reserve with relatively few dunkings in the water, with only going swimming once (due to a very bad decision regarding standing on a willow stump in the middle of a ditch). Although there was that time when the river was higher than my waders were, leading to a very uncomfortable damp crotch situation. So the moral is that cold, muddy water should be avoided on the inside of waterproof things.

c) Fire is hot. With clearance of willow and scrub going on across the reserve come winter time, we make some impressive bonfires to burn down what has been removed. Needless to say, there has been singed hair, eyelashes, and bald arms, complete with clothes which may smell of bonfire for years to come. And we never did remember to bring in marshmallows on a burning day!

But in all seriousness, I’m leaving the reserve with a plethora of new skills, from how to build a gate from scratch, to handling a variety of new machines necessary to maintain a habitat such as hedgetrimmers and pedestrian mowers. The RSPB invest greatly in their volunteers, and sent me on courses in riding quad bikes, safely applying pesticides, brushcutters, and more. These I have used regularly on the reserve, and I can now enter the job market with experience and the tickets to show. It has been amazing learning about and making a real difference to our local wildlife every day. Can you tell I’m plugging becoming a residential volunteer? I can’t recommend it enough!

The team on the Exe Estuary reserve are just amazing. Laura and Phill have been my colleagues at work, my housemates in the volunteer house, and most importantly, my friends. My days out working on the reserve come rain or shine wouldn’t have been the same without them, and of course Tom, our Assistant Warden too. And 8am starts have been made a whole lot more fun with Pete’s grinning face first thing blasting out some new remix he’s found to share. I leave with a long list of new birds I’ve checked off the ‘seen’ list, but also a similarly long list of great new music to check out.

I’m proud to confirm that my nails are definitely going in straighter than when I first arrived -although Patrick, one of our Thursday work party volunteers might not agree...I swear he just always happens to be watching when it goes wrong! They won’t get rid of me that easily though, I’ll be around and about, and might pop in to the office when they least expect it – with chocolate chip Hobnobs if they’re lucky (thanks, Dennis!).

I hope you all have a fantastically wonderful weekend,

Jay