Volunteer Voices: Alice

We welcome our new Education Intern, Alice Milton

Growing up in Suffolk and Norfolk I took nature for granted. Maybe not the rare things or the big charismatic stuff, but certainly the little things: watching the house martins return summer after summer; sucking the nectar from a white deadnettle flower; learning which trees could be climbed and which hedgerows hid a secret child-sized hollow inside them.

That this (the opportunity to explore nature with all my senses and on my own terms) was a privilege, is something I only really recognised when I found myself years later, living in an eighteenth floor flat in a big city halfway across the world. Without easy access to green spaces I felt anxious and claustrophobic, and not knowing the names of even the commonest plants or insects made me feel disconnected, like I didn’t belong.

I returned to the UK to study Ecology and Conservation. I wanted to better understand the different ways in which people connect to nature, to explore how those connections develop and how they might be made stronger. In September I’ll be starting a PhD looking at how biodiversity impacts human happiness, and until then I’m the Education, Families and Youth Intern here at Minsmere.

Spending this much time at Minsmere is amazing. I’m surrounded by so many passionate and knowledgeable people that I’m just trying soak up as much as I can. With every new plant name that I learn, with each new invertebrate fact or bird behaviour I discover, the landscape grows in complexity and wonder: a little information can unlock a whole new world, can make visible things that you simply couldn’t see before.

I’ve already had some really special sightings: a new (for me) mammal species, the water shrew racing across the surface of the pond (affectionately nicknamed ‘Speedy Gonzales’ by some of the volunteers). An adder, curled up in the bole of a tree, twisting gently with all the striped strangeness of an optical illusion. A bittern, crouched and booming, glimpsed in its hideout in the reeds.

Watershrew eating by Steve Everett

But the best part is when I get to share this with the visiting children. After showing them the adder I am bombarded with questions: ‘Is it hungry? What does it eat? Is it dangerous? What’s the most dangerous snake in the world? If you got to a hospital two minutes after being bitten by a Black Mamba would you survive?’ I don’t know the answer to half these questions but I’m thrilled by their enthusiasm.

Or maybe we see a Muntjac tiptoeing through the bracken and the group of ten year olds that was so noisy five minutes earlier is suddenly hushed and focused, creeping closer and whispering urgently, ‘Can we get nearer, can we touch it?’

Two muntjac by Christine Hall 

Pond dipping never fails to engage and the journey from reluctance to excitement is wonderful to watch. A girl who asks in the classroom if she could please ‘not have to touch anything’ is later dancing with delight at the dragonfly larva that she’s just found in the net: ‘Oh my days! It. Is. MASSIVE!’

There is something so immersive about spending time here. Nibbling at the soft florets of sea kale on the strip of dunes, inhaling the coconut scent of gorse on a warm day, hearing the scratchy call of sand martins overhead: all my senses are engaged and yet I end the day feeling refreshed. I don’t think you can get experiences like this in the man-made world and I love being able to share this with school children. They bring such openness and curiosity: I feel hopeful that the experiences they have here might make the difference between an adult who is disconnected from, even frightened of, nature, and an adult who feels themselves a part of it.

Photo credit Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)

People will protect what they love, but in order to love it they have to really get to know it. The team here at Minsmere are sharing both their knowledge and their passion with everyone who visits. It’s great to be a part of that.