Hi, I’m Beth, an MSc student studying Species Identification and Survey Skills at Reading University. Part of the degree involves doing a six-month placement at an ecological consultancy. This blog will document my experiences during my placement at Ecology by Design.
Grass snake
August has been a super busy month! Both of the ongoing reptile translocations are almost at an end and will stop once there has been an absence of reptiles for a fixed period of time. I have enjoyed seeing the projects from beginning to end and assisting with all the activities that are associated with a long-term project. I caught a couple more Adders this month and feel confident finding and handling them, I also relocated a Grass snake, which is the first I have ever seen! It is satisfying moving them away from an area which will soon become dangerous for them due to heavy machinery.
I grow in confidence with bat work every month, and during August I lead a few more surveys. During a dawn survey, at a site that is my responsibility I saw eight brown long- eared bats enter a building above the front door. This is the biggest re- entry I have seen and made the extremely early start worth it!
I have been setting up wildlife cameras for a couple of months now to try to capture Badgers moving on and off a site that we are working on. Early on there wasn’t much luck, with only rabbits and muntjac being seen. However, towards the end of August I got a few videos of Badgers moving through the woodland towards the cameras. I was pleased as I use a wildlife camera at home and have never managed to capture a Badger.
Roman snail during translocation
In August I did my first Ecological Clerk of Works supervision (ECOW). I supervised the clearance of scrub on a site where there have been slow worms and roman snails, there has already been a reptile translocation, but I was there to move roman snails and check bramble as it was cleared in case some were hiding or those doing the clearance saw any. I translocated 27 roman snails on the two days I was supervising, but they were found around nettle patches and near the boundary rather than in the areas being cleared.
Towards the end of the month I assisted with a nesting bird survey of old buildings at a quarry. This involved checking the buildings for signs of nesting and watching them for a while to see if birds are flying in and out the building, which could mean they are feeding young. No nests were seen during the survey.
I have continued to do regular office work such as ordering species records, writing descriptions of wildlife sites for reports, and organising surveys. I have also been working on my master’s portfolio which has shown me how much I have learned and experienced over the last five months. I’m now being given more responsibilities and my own projects, so I look forward to learning even more over the next month.