I’ve been brought up with a love of nature from my parents, and with Carlton marshes always having been my local patch, volunteering with Suffolk Wildlife Trust was always something I wanted to do.

I started volunteering in summer 2017. Honestly, I was in a bit of a life rut and finding something new to focus on was incredibly liberating. In the 3 years since the whole reserve has been transformed, but even in 2017 it was incredibly exciting having the original scrape bustling with wildlife. Carlton hadn’t always had the scrape, and the amount of exciting birdlife it attracted made every trip down the road to Carlton enthralling! I first started as a walking warden, going around the reserve tidying up any litter and chatting to visitors. It immediately felt rewarding simply helping out a little bit at a reserve I had visited countless times.

Soon after starting, I got involved with Helen Smith’s Fen Raft Spider surveys. I say I’ve been brought up a nature lover, but it’s always been primarily birds, so branching out into spiders was a whole new venture! Spending the summer months out on the marsh searching the dykes for webs and spiders was utterly brilliant and new, and since then I have surveyed them at Castle Marshes too.
 

But the chance of surveying such a charismatic species wasn’t even the best thing about the spider surveys, because it’s there I met Robyn – who has since become one of my closest friends. I’m naturally quite introverted, and I certainly didn’t volunteer with the thought of making new friends, but me and Robyn bonded so quickly over the course of volunteering together. I didn’t realise how exciting it would be to meet people who share the same passion as you.  And fast forward a year to 2018 where me and Robyn had got involved with manning a stall at the SWT Discover Gunton Meadow event – we met a volunteer called Lydia. Now stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Lydia has since become one of mine, and Robyn’s, closest friends.

Of course, through volunteering with SWT I have met countless fantastic people, but in Robyn and Lydia I really have made friends for life who I never would have had otherwise got the chance to meet. It’s been the most surprising thing for me to have gotten out of volunteering, but definitely what I value the most.

Since 2017 I’ve been given the opportunity to get stuck into so many volunteering roles alongside the spiders – I’ve surveyed breeding birds at Oulton Marshes in spring and been a part of the Wetland Bird Survey at Carlton in the winter. Seeing the seasons transform the local natural world through the lens of a fortnightly or monthly survey is a fascinating perspective. Sometimes it’s a little hard getting out of bed for early on a weekend, but being out there surveying is just so good for the soul each and every time – be it watching a peregrine hunt the hundreds of wigeon and lapwings on the new Peto’s scrape in winter or being serenaded by the Oulton Marsh dawn chorus on a crisp spring morning.

Then there was volunteering during the couple months the American Bittern frequented Carlton Marshes in spring 2018. There were so many visitors to talk and guide around as the UK birder world descended! Taking a twitcher from Yorkshire, who didn’t let his visual impairment get in the way of seeing this mega rarity, down to the viewing spot particularly stands out fondly in my mind. He was such a character, and the shot of adrenaline he got upon his first sight of the bird was something we all felt! I will never forget standing with Robyn one Sunday evening just watching the American Bittern fish in a dyke so close to Share Marsh track. Or standing on the riverbank as Gavin Durrant pointed out the bizarre liquidy call of the bird as it echoed across the marsh. It was a magical time to visit Carlton Marshes, a magical time to be volunteering especially and it certainly really developed my people skills!

I have also been involved with the Waveney Valley Wildlife Group since 2018; an amazing group of volunteers who run an array of monthly events (when there’s not an international pandemic). I only play a small role, running the twitter account and writing the newsletter for the group, but it’s wonderful volunteering with such a fantastic set of people who I am always in awe of how much dedication and efficiency they conduct everything in whilst always being as warm and friendly as ever.

Combining countless unforgettable experiences with picking up a couple besties was enough to lift me out of my life rut. And not least because the confidence and skills acquired whilst volunteering was a massive part of how I managed to get a job working at a library, in a role I absolutely love, which has in-turn led me to so much. My volunteering turned out to be a massive part of my interview for that job, and I am near certain I would not have landed it without it.

Volunteering with Suffolk Wildlife Trust has genuinely been life changing. The opportunities and the people have been a real turning point for me – and I am immensely thankful for it. So thank you all those I’ve met at SWT, and particularly Matt and Ellen at Carlton for giving me the chance to experience this all.

Jonny Ellis