The surveys at Black Beck are still ongoing but I made much more progress this month with a couple of beautiful sunny days that meant I stayed out much longer and collected much more data. I now only have two more polygons left, and although they are quite big I am aiming to be finished by the end of this month, leaving me with a few months to spend analysing the data and writing up a report. This will be the first time I’ve written a report of this kind and I’m looking forward to getting some experience of it. One day I also came across a flock of golden plover feeding on the fell and it was lovely watching them.
A lot of my work this month has been focused around our marine training programme as our current trainees came to the end of their placements and we began the process of recruiting the next ones. I had been doing a lot of secretive work on their ‘Who Wants to be a Marine Conservation Officer’ presentation for the end of placement celebration event and luckily it went well on the day. I have added ‘powerpoint wizard’ to my CV and have already had to turn down a few offers of work on TV gameshows. I also did a lot of admin preparation for the selection day and made sure all the candidates and assessors would have all the paperwork they needed and again it all went smoothly on the day. It is always interesting for me to attend selection days we hold as I’ve never attended one myself and it’s a great way of learning what will be expected of me if I ever do. All of the candidates were lovely and it was very enjoyable meeting them all. This year we are recruiting four graduate and two non-graduate trainees and I am looking forward to meeting the shortlisted candidates again when they come for interview as it will be my job to show them round South Walney.
