I’m Marina, the Visitor Experience Officer for this visitor season at Forsinard Flows. I volunteered last summer doing breeding bird surveys at Forsinard; that means walking lots and resting not much! But it also means getting to experience the bog in a way not many people have done and getting a real feeling of satisfaction from overcoming all the challenges the bog presents (sometimes as simple as not getting your forms soaked with the rain!, but also how to keep them dry when one of your leg has gone half way down a mossy patch).
All the effort was more than worth it, as I got to see the amazing wildlife that we have on the reserve; from short-eared owls taking off a metre away from my feet, to shy red-throated divers smartly swimming in one of the pools, black-throated divers taking off and trying to scare me away with their unusual and really impressive alarm call, skylarks accompanying my walk with their song, fluffy tiny ducklings swimming in the lochs but also froglets, lizards, northern eggar moths and much more that I got to experience last summer.
I also got to learn about the landscape scale restoration project that takes place at the RSPB Forsinard Flows Reserve and I got to see it firsthand. I helped monitoring the recovery of the water table in the felled forestry, but also looked for drains to put damns in to re-wet the area. I monitored the predators in the forestry and out in the bog, and I understood their numbers are higher than they should be due to better shelter in the forestry, with the consequences that this has for the breeding birds. I got to understand the importance of felling the forestry and bringing the Sphagnum back to those areas and this year I’m back as a member of the staff to tell as many people as I can about the wonders of peatland, and about them being in trouble.
I graduated in Biology in 2013 and did a Master’s in Biodiversity and Conservation Biology in Seville (Spain), where I’m from. I’ve got a passion for nature and I want to spend my life working for it and its conservation, but also engaging with people and inspiring them to love it in the way I do.
I’ll be at RSPB Forsinard Flows visitor centre until September so I hope you come and join me in one of our guided walks!