A warden of the future

Guest blog by Tammy Abrey, Minsmere Intern

Hello, my name is Tammy and I’m doing a conservation internship for six months at Minsmere and then six months at Old Hall Marshes. I started at Minsmere in March and since then have learnt so much. I feel so lucky that I am surrounded by nature everyday as I live on the reserve in the volunteer chalet.

The work is so diverse, from driving a quad bike to check ponies and cattle to digging and spraying the invasive plant pirri-pirri-bur. I have been involved in so many surveys such as bittern monitoring, water rail surveys, bearded tit surveys and wildfowl transects. My map reading and bird identification by sight and sound has greatly improved. The most exciting encounters so far have been watching a bittern chase another bittern across the reedbed and also watching a water vole feeding.

I studied animal management at university but soon realised I had a passion and interest in ecology and wildlife conservation so since then have built up volunteering so the internship is the perfect way forward in building my career.  The reserve is a wonderful place to work in and everyone here at the reserve are really friendly.

[Our internship programme has already helped us to train some of the RSPB wardens of the future. We hope Tammy will be successful in her future career search once her year long training is completed - ed.]