Hello blog readers! My name is Meg and I am honoured and excited to be one of the new trainees for 2026. I am quite unsure of where to start because the last two months (how has it already been two months?!) have been a whistle stop tour of species, habitats, processes, tools, techniques, land rovers and many interesting and friendly people! My brain is bursting with new information and I have a very long to-do list of subjects I am keen to do further research on. Despite my ever-expanding to-do list, I have had a fantastic time learning the ropes so far and feel I have come to the right place to (hopefully!) begin a career in conservation. I am extremely grateful for the warm welcome we have received from the staff and volunteers at Worcestershire Wildlife Trust (WWT) who have already taught me so much and been very generous with their knowledge and time.

Before becoming a trainee, I worked as an outdoor activity instructor and group coordinator - think high-ropes, climbing, archery, kayaking etc. I knew that the hands-on, outdoors element of my job was something that I wanted to keep but I dreamt of doing more to help our struggling ecosystems and climate, although I wasn’t sure what this would look like yet. After beginning volunteering with the wonderful WWT rovers and a few other nature charities in autumn last year, I discovered that practical conservation work and the amazing wildlife I experienced captivated me and the idea of trying to forge a path into this world gradually became a realistic plan. I have never quite understood what it is I wanted to do in my career and finally here I am and it seems to make sense - a way of making a tangible difference for nature. I am very grateful for the traineeship and for all the people who inspired me as a volunteer.

Our main project over the last two months has been creating a deer fence at Hornhill Wood. Hornhill Wood is a beautiful traditional coppice woodland divided into eight coups that are coppiced on a yearly rotation. Each year, the trainee team construct a 400m long deer fence around the most recent coppice coup to protect the sprouting hazel stools from being munched by deer. Interestingly, hazel stools can survive up to three hits from deer before the carbohydrates stored in the stool and roots can no longer regenerate the tree. We also learnt that coppicing a hazel tree means it can live for several hundred years, whereas without coppicing, hazel live for up to 80 years. In this photo of last year’s coppice coup we can see the difference the deer fencing makes one year on.