Volunteers are important to the RSPB. Without them, we’d be unable to undertake most of the work that we do.
Volunteers help us to greet our visitors, serve in the café, count Bitterns, manage the reedbeds, clean the hides, lead guided walks. And that’s the just the tip of the iceberg, as they say.
Some volunteers have been with the RSPB for a long time, and none more so that Pete Etheridge, who recently took the difficult decision to step aside after more than 50 years of volunteering in various capacities. The RSPB even paid him for a few years!
Pete first became interested in birds as a child when his parents enrolled him into the RSPB’s junior membership (nowadays known as Wildlife Explorers) shortly before the start of World War Two.
However it wasn’t until he moved to Epping Forest, north of London, in 1969 that he met other birdwatchers and his interest began to grow. That year, Pete helped fellow birdwatcher Peter Rumsey to found the RSPB Epping Forest Local Group.
In 1976, Pete went on a Winston Churchill Scholarship to Iran, where he spent three months recording breeding birds.
Then, in 1983, Pete moved to Eastbridge, and began volunteering at Minsmere for one day per week, alongside Site Manager, Jeremy Sorenson.
Pete Etheridge at Minsmere in 1985
Two years later, Pete returned from a tour across Nepal and visited the RSPB’s headquarters at The Lodge in Bedfordshire to ask for a job. He was, at last, going to be paid to watch birds.
Pete spent the next four summers helping Hen Harriers and Peregrines as a Species Protection Officer in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire. During the winter, he returned to Suffolk and volunteered here at Minsmere.
Female Hen Harrier - one of the species Pete helped in Bowland. Photo by David Naylor, taken at Minsmere
After completing his contract in Bowland, Pete spent the summer of 1990 monitoring breeding terns on The Skerries, a group of tiny islands off the Anglesey coast.
This led to his appointment as Contract Warden at RSPB North Warren, here in Suffolk, where he remained until retiring in 1996.
Pete getting ready for a work party, Minsmere 1985
Except that, like many RSPB wardens before him, Pete didn’t really retire. He continued volunteering for the RSPB for almost another 30 years!
Pete’s volunteering has been long and varied. He spent many hours monitoring and recording the breeding birds at Minsmere. He’s welcomed visitors and joined conservation work parties. More recently, Pete has spent several years helping the Visitor Experience Team at Minsmere to edit, file and catalogue our huge stock of digital photos.
Although Pete finally stepped away from volunteering in November, at the age of 95, he can still be seen visiting Minsmere on his mobility scooter.
Pete’s wife, Kathy, volunteers with the Visitor Experience Team too, having also been an RSPB employee. Kathy had spent the summer with Pete on The Skerries, and worked at both North Warren and here at Minsmere, where she ran our shop for several years.
We are forever grateful for the incredible work that volunteers like Pete and Kathy do for the RSPB. If you’d like to follow their lead and become an RSPB volunteer, whether here or at your own local reserve, have a look at our website for details of opportunities near you - https://www.rspb.org.uk/helping-nature/support-the-rspb/volunteering/rspb-volunteering-opportunities