Where were you working prior to your traineeship?

I was working for a pharmaceutical company where I had worked since leaving university where I did chemistry. I enjoyed the lab work but then I had a few promotions I become a manager and ended up in boring meetings all the time not doing the thing I liked originally.

But I’ve always really loved wildlife and nature and wanted a more practical role, so I went to college part-time doing a conservation course, and that’s when I started volunteering where I was living at the time. Then I thought if I don’t do something to change my job role, I’ll never do it.

What other volunteering roles have you undertaken?

I started off doing the practical things, working with reserves managers in Dorset and Hampshire for their Wildlife Trusts doing fencing for livestock, clearing scrub, clearing pine trees on the heathland in Dorset so that you’re protecting the heathland and it’s not turning into a pine woodland.

I’ve done some dormouse and butterfly surveys, so I’ve done a variety of things I suppose. I knew I didn’t want to do the reserves stuff all the time, so ecology seemed like a better fit.

Now that your traineeship has ended, what do you feel you’ve gained?

It’s given me 12 months of absolute joy! It’s been amazing; best thing I’ve ever done – I’m so pleased I did it. It’s given me a much broader knowledge of ecology of British wildlife, of specific skills in surveying, of data management and processing.

Every day I felt I was leaning something new in an area I’m very interested in. I’d done a qualification, and some practical work, but when you’re doing the ecology work three days per week for twelve months, I just feel you’re learning and gaining skills at a much faster rate. So now I feel much more prepared to get a first paid job in ecology.

What do you do when you are not volunteering?

Wildlife is my main hobby and the more I’ve done this year, the more I’ve found out how involved you can get, and about all the different local groups there are. I live with my partner who is not in the wildlife business, but he enjoys the outdoors and nature, so we do lots of walks together, especially when we visit my family in the New Forest.

I do enjoy socialising and partying still. We don’t have children, so we’re quite free to stay out all night and do what we want. More recently I’ve gotten into gardening. We’ve got a little old cottage and I’m trying to make a cottagey garden with wildlife in mind, so I’m trying to be as environmentally friendly as I can by planting British wild flowers.

Where did you grow up?

The south coast on the boundary of the New Forest National Park. I went to school in Christchurch, so we spent a lot of time either on the beach, or in the New Forest at weekend with my family. I love it there – it’s my aspiration to live there again one day.

What did you enjoy doing as a child?

I loved animals of all sorts - domesticated and wild things, but my mum didn’t let me, or my sister have any. I guess I got my wildlife interest from my dad as he likes his garden birds and we’d always have feeders at home, and a bird book in our kitchen, so when we had birds visiting the table, we could work out what they were.

What would be your ideal career?

I would love to continue the ecology path; I think it’s quite a defined route in the industry. I’m looking out for Assistant Ecologist positions, and then I think I would progress from there, so maybe be an assistant for a few years, and then become an ecologist, and then more senior.

So, I’d like to continue what I’ve been doing at BBOWT – doing lots of surveying, visiting places and assessing the conditions of the wildlife there.

What would you say was the most important thing that everyone could do to help nature?

Take some small measure in you own garden to increase biodiversity there. So, whether that’s putting out bird feeders, or building or buying bug hotels, bird boxes – you know, just very small measures, and lots can be made from odds and ends you have at home. You don’t need to spend lots of money.

I think if everybody did that and they start to see more wildlife in their own garden, then people would care more, and their own children or grandchildren are more likely to care about it when they grow into adulthood. When you have it on your doorstep that’s the easiest way to impart that passion into children.

As told to Wayne Brown, Volunteering Administrator. With grateful thanks to Sam, and to all our wonderful volunteers.

More than 1,700 volunteers help us towards our vision of more nature everywhere, on our nature reserves, at our visitor and education centres, in our offices and more.

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