We’re super excited to be relaunching our Young Wardens group on Saturday 15 January, and every 3rd Saturday of the month. Minsmere’s Young Wardens is for young people with an enthusiasm for wildlife and the environment. The sessions consist of lots of practical, hands-on activities, opportunities for young people to increase their skills in conservation management and wildlife knowledge and make new like-minded friends.
If you want to join this fantastic group (or know a young person who might) then please email Christopher.ford@rspb.org.uk to get signed up.
The following blog was written by one of first Young Wardens, Lucy, as she describes her experience of her first meeting back in 2015.
Lucy’s blog
Today I started a new club. It was called Young Wardens. I was scared to start with but when I arrived everyone was so lovely and friendly I felt fine. I learned lots about the reserve and helped do some conservation. We started off by doing some games to help learn everyone’s names. Next we went and helped build up the brash around the North Bushes. We did this because birds are soon going to nest there so we needed to stop people going through and disturbing them nesting. We learned the brash was made out of the twigs of silver birches. We also helped build up the existing fence to help to stop people stepping over and disturbing the birds.
We next had a break and had Hot Chocolate! After that we made doughnuts. These were made out of the brash for nightingales. We did this because nightingales nest in enclosed round spaces. Last year there weren’t any nightingale nests on this part of the reserve so it will be nice to see if they work. I enjoyed doing all of it and liked it because it was something I had never done before.
We next went to Wildlife Lookout to do some bird watching. There I learned lots about the Scrape and reed cutting. I learned things like part of the scrape is salt water and part is fresh water and there is a fence around to stop animals getting in and eating the birds and their eggs. Also I saw the reed cutter and learned how reeds grow and how they stop it spreading. I also learned what they do with the reeds when they are cut.
Overall I really enjoyed today and learned lots of really interesting things. It is nice to think I have done something to help.