Hello readers! My name is Chloe and I am one of the new 2026 conservation trainees. Before stumbling upon the traineeship, I had recently finished my degree in Zoology and was working as a Membership Recruiter for the Trust while volunteering with various organisations to gain some more hands-on conservation experience.

In the last couple of months, the breadth of practical skills and experiences we’ve developed has been overwhelming (in a good way). We’ve undergone first aid training, fence repair, deer fence construction, ragwort pulling, habitat pile building, leadership training, vehicle inductions, brushcutter training and had the chance to absorb so much specialised ecological knowledge from all kinds of people via osmosis. That makes writing about just one experience incredibly difficult to narrow down!

Something that has been very new to me as the course has progressed is surveying. Despite my academic background, getting involved in surveys is something I hadn't done before joining the Trust as a trainee. Therefore, getting involved in the dormouse survey at Ribbesford Wood in the Wyre was a once in a lifetime opportunity - and it felt like one.

 We met up on a well-maintained track and learnt about the reasons behind our surveying before heading off into the woodland to find our first line of boxes marked on the map. The boxes were set out in neat lines across the various sections of woodland, interspersed with additions after new boxes had been added to the same area. Despite the use of neon paint markers on nearby trees, I found it difficult to spot the next along the line, so I was very grateful to be paired up Catharine, an ex-trainee with more experience (and better vision).

It took lots of no-shows, birds and empty wood mouse nests to find them, but eventually, Catharine and I were lucky enough to be the first of the group to find what looked at first like a wood mouse nest (a jumble of unstructured leaf litter) but ended up holding three dormice!

Despite the immense excitement of being involved in this process, for me the most exciting part of my day was seeing an enormous mound of pine needles for the first time - a wood ant nest, absolutely covered in enormous worker ants and winged alates! 

Alongside getting involved with surveying dormice, I’ve also had the opportunity to tag along to a bat survey with the Worcestershire Bat Group at the Moors in Upton Warren, surveying for wood whites at Monkwood, spotting slow worms of all ages whilst reptile surveying with Catharine at Pound Green and surveying for signs of white and red rot (and their associated saproxylic insects) in the decaying wood habitats at Pipers Hill Common after an incredible talk about the importance of wood pasture by Keith Alexander at the volunteer conference.

I am incredibly grateful and excited for what is to come in the remainder of my time as a trainee following my experiences in these first few months. I hope my next blog is even more difficult to narrow down!