Rye Harbour Heritage Trainees

It’s a Goodbye from Tim……… and Hello to Shannon.

Wow – the past year has flown by. But, it’s time for me, Tim, to move on now my traineeship has come to an end. I have been very lucky to secure a role in alternative education, working with adolescents in a nature setting. This is such a great role for me. The work I have done with all the brilliant people at Sussex Wildlife Trust has given me more knowledge, skills and experience than I could ever have imagined.

I will miss the reserve and all the amazing volunteers and staff that I have worked with over the last year, and, I cannot thank them enough. The traineeship has allowed me to sample many different aspects of working in this area and with that also allowed me to focus down onto the area in which I wanted to work, which in turn has led me to gain employment in my perfect job. None of this would have been possible without the experience and knowledge gained from Sussex Wildlife Trust, all the staff and volunteers at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, The National Lottery Heritage Fund and of course all the special animals, plants and people here. Fortunately my new job, gives me the school holidays off so, I’m happy to say that I shall be returning as a volunteer and helping out as much as I can.

But as I say Goodbye, it’s time to say Hello to the next Rye Harbour Heritage Trainee Shannon.

Hello, Shannon here signing on. 

Tim has given me such a high standard to live up to but I’m sure you won’t be disappointed! I’m just going onto my second week and I have done so much already. Everyone has given me such a warm welcome and I can’t wait to get to know everyone more. Just to give a little background on myself, I am originally from Brighton, but lived away while studying Criminology and Psychology at the University of Southampton (random I know). I realised that nature and conservation is my passion and how I want to spend my life, did a bunch of volunteering in Costa Rica so the University of Sussex would let me do a Masters in Animal Behaviour (seemed to work). I graduated last September, did a bunch more volunteering in Greece earlier this year, applied for this position, and here I am!

I have high interest in ecology, conservation practices and restoration but I am going to try and be involved in everything! The community engagement is something I haven’t done much of in the past but I am eager and enthusiastic to get involved with the community.

But, onto what I’ve done so far… induction videos, worked with the lovely Natasha to help with the last two Rye Harbour Holiday clubs where we took the kids to get a closer look at some invertebrates and reptiles, and went around the reserve on a super species scavenger hunt in all the different habitats! I also worked with David, a Nature Reserve Warden, who is responsible for lots of essential land management tasks across the reserve. He gave me the full tour while we completed some odd jobs.

View from the Halpin hide - above is before and below is after cutting.

But after a nice restful bank holiday weekend, which I hope you all enjoyed, I worked with the Reserve Manager, Barry. We cleared a reedbed of tall vegetation that was blocking the view from the Halpin hide (see pictures above). Now visitors can watch the autumn and winter birds without obstruction from the towering plants. It was very exciting for me because I am a very hands on, active person and I used the hedge-trimmer for the first time - the thing was nearly as big as me! But it was great fun and we cleared out all the vegetation successfully. This process is very beneficial for species like Moorhens, that like to rest on the newly decaying debris when water levels start to rise again. Anyway see the pictures below of the before and after! Bring everyone to come see the new view, your kids, your Nan, your dog, everyone can enjoy all the wonderful wildlife to see here at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. 

To top things off we spotted a cute little - only 5mm across - orange fungus that was growing in the thick mud around the Lesser Reedmace. It was found to be an Eyelash Fungi, because it has tiny little hairs around the edge and underneath that looks like eyelashes (who could have guessed?). 

Check out the social media pages for regular posts of interesting finds, like this!

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The Heritage Trainees are part of our National Lottery Heritage Fund project called Discover Rye Harbour.

Other parts of the project are described at https://rye.sussexwildlifetrus...