Hello from Lauren!

There is a new face around Frampton Marsh. The team has been joined by Lauren, who will a residential volunteer with us for 7 weeks over the summer. Here is what she has to say...

-------------------------

Hello everyone

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself – I’m Lauren Currie and I’ll be spending seven weeks at Frampton Marsh as a residential volunteer.

Nature has been my passion since I was as young as I can remember, but having chosen the wrong subjects at school for taking an environmental degree at university, I’ve concentrated on volunteering as the next best way to pursue a career in conservation. So far I’ve undertaken over 1000 hours of voluntary work for eight different charities, covering surveying and monitoring, people engagement and practical conservation work.

I visited Frampton Marsh for the first time in mid July with a friend who lives locally (my shift partner whilst volunteering at RSPB Loch Garten monitoring the ospreys earlier this year). Having lived all my life in Glasgow, the number of species on the sightings board at the reserve that I’d never seen before blew my mind.

My highlight on this first visit was a fabulous view of my ‘bogey bird’ which, up until then, had eluded me - spoonbill. Over the years I’d had quite a few near misses with this species, most recently at RSPB Arne in Dorset last month where I spent the best part of four frustrating hours one afternoon trying but failing to get a decent view of an apparent distant spoonbill (which spent the majority of the time asleep and therefore hiding its beak from me). So you can imagine my excitement when within twenty minutes of arriving at Frampton Marsh I had fantastic close views of one showing well through a scope in the visitor centre!

The quality and quantity of species at the site, coupled with the warm welcome I received on arrival and a sense that the reserve was well-run left me with a very positive first impression of Frampton Marsh. So when I was told about residential volunteering opportunities here, it didn’t take very long or much encouragement for me to ask when I could begin – and a week later I was back down to get started!

So far I’ve been involved in the first raft building, pond dipping and bug hunting sessions of the year, as well as visitor centre work and assisting the warden by cutting back vegetation from the path edges.

I’ve also had countless fantastic wildlife sightings, although my highlight of the week, without question, had to be the stunning adult white-winged black tern in summer plumage from the 360 hide – awesome!

However, the species I’d most like to encounter during my time here would be a grass snake. Although I have a keen interest spanning all areas of British nature, I do have a particular fondness for reptiles, so I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for one of those…

Looking forward to another six weeks of volunteering and hope to see you at the reserve soon!

Lauren