Lake Vyrnwy was been lucky to have some very talented and determined warden interns/long term volunteers. We thought it would be nice to review what has happened to some of them and how they have developed their careers in nature conservation.
Let’s start with Adam whose current role is as assistant warden at RSPB Saltholme.
Adam at work installing a Shelduck box at Saltholme
I still have fond memories of being part of the 2014 Mid Wales intern squad, fitting in a great deal of valuable reserve management experience into the year under the guidance of a knowledgeable team of wardens.
The internship proved to be time well spent as I secured a contract with the Scottish Wildlife Trust at their fantastic Falls of Clyde reserve. As part of the Seasonal Ranger role I lived on site to provide overnight protection for a pair of nesting peregrine, a memorable experience waking up in woodland full of bird song and having the falcons and badgers as neighbours.
A lucky break led to me heading back to my native Teesside to join the team at RSPB Saltholme as Assistant Warden, it’s hard to believe that I will have been in position for three years in the autumn. Thrilled to be working in my field of choice, I look forward each day to helping manage this relatively young site to its full potential. This spring Saltholme signed up to the RSPB internship scheme where I now find myself in the position of managing interns, it is now my turn to share knowledge and inspire potential wardens of the future.
I met Adam when I started volunteering at Lake Vyrnwy and at the same time I met Gavin and Jenny. Both have moved around the UK, both have been interns and volunteers in different parts of the UK, and now both are now back at Vyrnwy. Gavin returned as an assistant Warden and has recently been promoted to Warden. Jenny is on contract at Vyrnwy. I do remember that when we had to do some maintenance on the Nest Box trail Adam, Jenny and Gavin came to help me – as I recall Jenny carried the ladder across from the workshop, I carried the nest box and tools, while Adam and Gavin suggested a suitable tree for the owl nest box. But, once the ladder was up they all took a step back and left me to clamber up and fix the somewhat large nest box, which fell down on the first attempt. Fortunately it did not hit anyone, nor sustain any damage. We got there in the end and the box is still in position.
Roz was a warden intern at Lake Vyrnwy during 2015. After a tenacious journey through several volunteering roles and a lot of interviews Roz now has what she describes as her dream job with National Trust in the Peak District as an Academy Ranger.
Getting a place on the RSPB internship was mostly the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time! They had a last minute drop out and I happened to be at Vyrnwy for two weeks of residential volunteering, I was more than happy to step in and sign myself up for a year in Mid Wales.
Life at Lake Vyrnwy
I was a real novice when I started; I spent March to September 2015 at Lake Vyrnwy, spending time with the reserve team learning bird ID skills, monitoring birds up on the moors and in the woodlands, checking nest boxes, helping with lambing on the busy RSPB farm, and working in the shop welcoming members of the public to the reserve. For the second half of the internship I moved on to RSPB Ynys-Hir from September 2015 to March 2016. After a year as a warden intern I felt I’d had a well rounded experience and was ready and raring to get out into the world and find my dream job! Little did I realise how tricky that would be…
I moved back home to the Peak District where my parents live and started volunteering locally for Coombes Valley RSPB, White Peak National Trust and Staffordshire Wildlife Trust. At the same time I hit the job hunting trail in earnest - 6 months went by, 16 interviews and around 4,000 miles of driving to them and still no luck… I was beginning to think I wasn’t cut out for it after all.
Roz working with the Canals River Trust
Out of the blue, an old friend from school sent me a job advert that she thought sounded “my kinda thing” with CRT (Canal & River Trust) as a Heritage Trainee. I got the job and started in September 2016 on a 12 month contract with CRT in Stoke-on-Trent. It was working as a trainee with the construction team maintaining the canals; fitting new lock gates, repairing brick work as well as tow path repairs. Towards the end of the year I was offered to stay on with CRT for another two years to do an NVQ Level 3 in stone masonry, with a view to becoming a permanent stone mason should a vacancy come up. As much as I would have been happy to stay, the canal just didn’t have the magic I was looking for. It was just lacking the excitement that I felt for conservation work when I was Volunteering.
Roz and the National Trust Dark Peak moorland
I started keeping an eye out for conservation jobs, and my luck was much better this time around - I had just one interview this time and started my dream job in September 2017! I’m now working for National Trust in the Peak District as an Academy Ranger. It’s a two and a half year contract as part of the NT Academy training scheme, which has been running for over 15 years. Each year NT takes on 10 people on across England, Wales and N.Ireland and train them up to be fully fledged rangers. I’m based in the Dark Peak area, which is actually pretty similar to Vyrnwy habitat wise. There are a couple of reservoirs, surrounded by forestry and woodland, which then lead up onto vast expanses of moorland.
I’m so pleased how things have worked out in the end despite the long and trying journey. My advice to anyone who wants to work in conservation is to keep at it, it may seem endless at times but it’s so worth the wait when you finally make it!
And didn’t ROZ stick at it – wow. Christelle had different starting point. Christelle is French and after a degree course on Conservation Management in Glasgow she joined us at Lake Vyrnwy on the intern programme. Like Roz she spent 6 months at Lake Vyrnwy and 6 months at Ynys Hir. She did seem to leave Vyrnwy very suddenly, but we learnt that she had secured a job at a nature reserve in France and had to start immediately. Courage et bon chance Christelle.
Roseate Tern by Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com) - archive image
Ben came to Lake Vyrnwy after a contract on the Skerries. He spent 6 months with us as a volunteer before returning to the Skerries to live with the tern colony and to participate in a special programme on Roseate Terns. He has developed into a video blogger to highlight the RSPB work on this small island off Anglesey. You can follow Ben’s Blog here.
You may well have seen the great news from RSPB Skerries concerning the return of Roseate Terns for the first time in years – picked up as a news item last week on the BBC news website for Wales
I have mentioned Torrin a couple of times in previous blogs. Torrin joined RSPB Lake Vyrnwy on the intern programme in 2017 and has since secured a permanent role here as an Estate Worker. You may have read one of his blogs earlier this year when he said he yearned for the rain and wind rather than the sunshine – it has been a long hard hot summer for Torrin.
So that’s the end of my update on the likely lads and lasses – Adam, Gavin, Jenny, Roz, Christelle, Ben and Torrin. When I started work in the late 1960s/early 1970s it was a pretty buoyant job market – you could almost quit one job and immediately find and start another. Quite a different story these days, but I am in awe of these young people starting their careers with unpaid volunteering and a conviction and determination to achieve their desired job in nature conservation. True role models - we wish good luck for the future to all young people working to give nature a home.
John Davies, Tasgmon/Volunteer Handyman
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