I’m Sammy, and during April I spent a week working within a variety of roles, alongside an incredible team at Suffolk Wildlife Trust.

Whilst looking for experience, I was keen to find something that allowed me to partake and further my understanding in the protection of wildlife and their habitats, with the purpose of maintaining biodiversity. Additionally, I have a deep interest in birds, which are present in copious numbers and are an integral foundation within the ecosystem at Lackford Lakes.

For the majority of the time, I was based at Lackford Lakes, a local reserve that I frequently visit, because of this and many other reasons, the chance to work with Suffolk Wildlife Trust and help to maintain this site was an unmissable opportunity.

The days that I spent at Lackford Lakes included working with the kids holiday club, reserve maintenance and the running of the visitor site. On the day which focused on reserve maintenance, I worked alongside the reserves warden undertaking tasks around the site such as building temporary fences to re-route paths, as well as hide up-keep. Some other tasks involved cutting back branches from the paths, filling up bird feeders and creating signs for the site.

The other days were based at Carlton Marshes, undertaking ecology survey work and at Fox Fritillary Meadow, helping to run the Fox Fritillary Event.

Whilst at Carton Marshes, I surveyed for the presence of water vole, and put out rafts to help future monitoring; through this I learnt about the different signs to look out for when monitoring species and the threats facing water vole populations. This leads onto my next experience, I was shown the traps which are put out for American mink, an invasive species which prey on water vole causing their population size to plummet. The traps are used with the aim of minimising American mink populations, in order to have the most positive overall effect on the biodiversity of the local area.

My work experience at Suffolk Wildlife Trust enlightened me to an abundance of careers within conservation, many of which I was completely oblivious to, in particular, those which aren’t hands-on conservation work such as communications roles which promote the reserves, and roles in visitor experience. I’m looking to study Environmental Science at Uni and then pursue a career within the field of conservation. Another point that was highlighted to me by all the staff that I worked alongside, is the how invaluable practical experience is in order to achieve a career in this field, so now, my focus is on finding more volunteering opportunities, so as to build up my practical skills and knowledge.