Our 2016 Reserve Intern Sarah Parmor arrived for the season in late March and has hit the ground running! Sarah takes up the story of her first 2 weeks.......
Ramsey opened to visitors slightly earlier than usual this year due to the early Easter weekend so I arrived on Good Friday to start my internship as reserve assistant. The weather and hence boats can be unpredictable this time of the year and as it happened we didn’t have boats or visitors for nearly a week after that. This was probably for the best as it gave me a week to get used to what my role would be and adjust to island life. Lisa and Greg have been very welcoming (and definitely patient) with me as I settle in.
The reason I had wanted to do this internship so much was because it offered such a variety of experiences – field and survey work, visitor engagement, developing practical skills and coordinating volunteers. Throw in some social media and lambing and I think I will have covered all bases.
By the end of the first week I already had my own breeding bird survey section of the island to record, started monitoring Chough nest sights, prepared the fields and farm buildings ready for lambing, given introductory visitor talks…and very importantly learnt to drive the quad bike!
I had actually acquired my atv (quad bike) licence a few weeks ago but hadn’t had time to get much practice. Driving a quad bike + trailer is relatively easy to learn but reversing with a trailer is a totally different matter. Luckily, we had a quiet afternoon one day and Lisa kindly left me in a field to practice. After a frustrating hour or so (and fortunately with no damage to vehicle or trailer) I managed to reverse them – relatively neatly- into the quad bike shed…I would call that success!
After a week living on my own at the volunteer's bungalow, our first short term volunteers of the season arrived. Mike and Kathy, both keen local birders, have been amazing and got stuck into some great jobs as well as helping with our visitors. We've had particular success (Greg liked it to a production line) making Manx Shearwater nest boxes and started digging them into their plots already. There are an increasing number of Manx Shearwater breeding in deep underground burrows on Ramsey and we closely monitor and ring many of these birds. If they use these nest boxes they are much easier to access. We will just have to wait and see for another month or so if it has worked!
So all in all I've had a great start to my six month internship and also have so much to learn and look forward to over the coming months. Seabird counting, Manx Shearwater census, Grey seal pup monitoring not to mention welcoming all the lovely visitors that come over to the island throughout the year….and just as I write this our first lambs are being born and are just so adorable- I don’t think I’ll ever want to leave!