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Getting stuck in

Joe and Sam, conservation trainees, at Tiddesley Wood nature reserve

New trainee Joe and colleagues hit the ground running in their first couple of months...

My name is Joe, I'm one of the five new trainees that joined Worcestershire Wildlife Trust in April this year. Over the next 12 months, I'll be learning all of the essential skills and theory that goes into managing the wildlife reserves that WWT cares for.

It was last May that, after nearly a decade of dissatisfaction, stress and sometimes tears working in NHS management, I finally decided that I needed to change career. I had no clear plan for what I would be doing next, except that a) sustainability and conservation is really important to me, b) I want to do practical work and c) I would avoid ever having to go into an office again, if possible.

Joe Edwards - a man with a beard wearing Worcestershire Wildlife Trust branded clothing and standing in a woodland next to a pair of ladders

I stumbled across the training scheme on the Trust's website while browsing for jobs and it definitely ticked these boxes. As someone without a degree in conservation, but some practical experience working on sustainable farms and other projects, I could see that this training scheme  would equip me with the knowledge and experience I need to kickstart a new career in conservation.

We are only a month into the training scheme and I have already done so much. As Josie mentioned in her out with the old, in with the new blog, one of our first main jobs was putting up the straining posts for deer fencing around newly coppiced forest at Hornhill Wood. We've also been at Tiddesley Wood, install a new kissing gate and putting up dead-hedges to guide walkers along routes that won't disturb local wildlife. At The Devil's Spittleful, we've worked alongside the roving volunteers to transplant heather to help restore heathland on previous farmland. I've also had brushcutter training, where I've learned how to assemble, maintain and safely use them for our work in the coming months.

Three people wearing safety helmets banging a fence post into the ground - two people are holding the post upright whilst a third is using a tool to bang it into the ground

Installing a fence post

This small summary of our tasks doesn't scratch the surface of the knowledge and smaller practical skills that Andy Bucklitch is passing onto us throughout our days. At Boynes Coppice, we needed to construct a fence around an old well. There's a lot more theory and practical skill that goes into making a fence than I expected. The work involved driving posts into the ground, creating box strainers to keep the fence up and wrapping the wire fencing and barbed wire around the posts with termination knots. Andy guided us through the process to assess and manage risks, how to use all the tools required and how to ensure that maintenance and repairs are made easier in future. He's also teaching us about the sites that we visit, their history, the wildlife that we are protecting there and how the work we're doing that day is contributing to its conservation.

This year's warm, dry spring has been a perfect way to start working out in the field. Tough times marching through the mud with heavy fence posts remain as war stories told to us by Andy and veteran trainee Josie as we sit in the shade of a coppicing forest with bluebells blanketing the ground and red kites gliding above us. Of course, as conservation trainees we also see how sunny, dry springs affect the reserves we manage. Patrolling through forests we see trees experiencing drought, insects emerging too early to survive another cold-snap and we learn how hibernating species like dormice or bats emerge before there is enough food available to sustain them. Climate change is a factor in the weather we are experiencing and something that we as trainees will need to understand as we embark on careers managing these places in future.  

Alongside the practical work, I am also learning about the Wildlife Trust and the roles that constitute it. I am meeting colleagues in the reserves team, the fundraisers, the comms and engagement teams to name a few. The Trust is an ecosystem of its own and the trainee scheme gives me helpful insight into what part I could play within it in future.  

Joe has left a career in NHS management to gain practical skills to care for wildlife reserves with the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust. 

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