Through the Golden Jubilee Scheme, the John Lewis partnership offers their employees the opportunity to volunteer part-time or full-time for up to six months at a charity of their choice whilst remaining on full pay and benefits. Jess recounts her time spent volunteering for Dorset Wildlife Trust.
Exploring nature on a secondment with Dorset Wildlife Trust
Last July, Jess Snellgrove took a secondment from working at John Lewis, and decided to spend her summer placement working with Dorset Wildlife Trust's Reserves Ecologist, Steve Masters. Thanks to John Lewis's Golden Jubilee Scheme, Jess was able to spend the summer in the field exploring nature reserves and surveying the fantastic wildlife found on them, with all surveying work done under licence.
My summer secondment at Dorset Wildlife Trust
Over the summer I was lucky enough to undertake a secondment at Dorset Wildlife Trust with Steve Masters, Dorset Wildlife Trust’s Reserve Ecologist. This summer placement was made possible through the John Lewis Partnership’s flagship volunteering programme, the Golden Jubilee Trust. I am an Open University undergraduate student studying for a BSc (Honours) Open degree in environmental science subjects and so this was an amazing opportunity to pursue my passion for wildlife and provide hands-on help with the work Dorset Wildlife Trust do for nature conservation.
My role largely consisted of supporting with a vast array of wildlife surveying at 15 of the nature reserves run by Dorset Wildlife Trust and I’d like to share just a snippet of this. I have been able to learn the methodology of several techniques such as butterfly transects, for which I’ve been able to discover beautiful species including silver-studded blue and silver-spotted skipper and larval web counts for marsh fritillary. All the survey work was done under licence.
Mark Heighes / marsh fritillary
James Cartwright / Marsh fritillary larval web
Steve Davis / Silver-studded blue
Jim Higham / Silver-spotted skipper
For me, my favourite part of the placement has to be the work that I’ve been most fortunate to do with bats – getting to be up close with eight different species in all, including lesser horseshoe and barbastelle. This has been largely through monthly box checks at Powerstock Common and monitoring the hibernaculum. Additional to this, I attended a harp-trapping night and was also lucky enough to be invited to help with a long-standing bechstein’s bat project at Bracketts Coppice conducted by Vincent Wildlife Trust. In July observing the largest maternity colony found to-date, a whopping 106!
I’ve attended several floral surveys throughout the summer, many of which are rare species from frog orchids to violet helleborine, marsh clubmoss and marsh gentian.
Jess Snellgrove / One of the bechstein’s bat found at Bracketts Coppice
Jess Snellgrove / Marsh gentain found whilst floral surveying
Jess Snellgrove / Surveying
Surveying for hazel dormice has also been a regular task, checking both boxes and tunnels for signs of this elusive mammal’s presence. The anticipation to see my first dormouse was well worth the wait after managing to find ten on the last checks, and as you can see, I was rather chuffed!
I’ve met so many brilliant people working for Dorset Wildlife Trust, all passionate about conservation, extremely knowledgeable and only too happy to share their understanding for a whole host of wildlife, which has been really inspiring and I certainly have a lot to be grateful for. So, a big thank you to everyone and especially to Steve, who has overseen my placement and taken me under his wing, flooding me with as much information as my brain will hold. I’ve enjoyed my placement immensely and am continuing to offer help as much as possible.
Jess Snellgrove.
Reflecting upon Jess' time at Dorset Wildlife Trust, Reserves Ecologist Steve Masters said:
Having Jess on placement has been a real asset for Dorset Wildlife Trust and she integrated into our team seamlessly. When Jess started, she had limited botanical knowledge. But after a few days in the field, alongside myself and our expert volunteers, she was able to identify a whole range of plants and the techniques used to monitor them. I would be happy to take on another placement volunteer like Jess in the future!
Dorset Wildlife Trust has a whole range of volunteering opportunities across our nature reserves and visitor centres. From work parties to nature surveys, practical tasks to admin duties, we are always looking for enthusiastic and passionate people to help Dorset Wildlife Trust protect and make space for nature in Dorset.
Jess Snellgrove / Hazel dormouse in its nest
Jess Snellgrove / Photo of my very first Hazel dormouse at Powerstock Common.
Jess Snellgrove / Surveying hazel dormice