The Good

My role as Data Assistant has let me get involved with a variety of different projects across the Trust and has also let me help out other teams within NWT.  I have been fortunate enough to help out with Red Squirrels Northern England (RSNE), the Wilder Druridge project, Local Sites, and NWT’s pine marten surveys.

I am really enjoying helping RSNE with the management of data, kindly shared with us by red squirrel groups across Northern England. Also, being involved with the Wilder Druridge project is helping with the development of my habitat mapping skills. I am currently mapping water courses in the Druridge area so we can develop corridors using the Wilder Northumberland principles, which I am sure you are already familiar with! I have also been working alongside our Local Sites Officer, Annie, to get our databases in order so surveys can begin as soon as possible. NWT’s pine marten surveys were launched this year, and I worked alongside our Conservation Assistant, Sara, and Nature Recovery Team Manager, Katy, to organise surveys, equipment, and training days. Once the final surveys are complete, I will be extracting this information from the online form and passing it along to the Vincent Wildlife Trust as part of their monitoring project. A wonderful group of volunteers and NRT placement, Jody, are acting as Conservation Admin Assistants, and this role has been essential in getting records from paper onto our system.

One of my favourite parts of historical data entry is notes and correspondence between people over 40 years ago! It is interesting to see the process of how sites were designated in the past.

The Bad

As with everything, sometimes things can go a tiny bit wrong. If your software crashes and you have not saved it in a little while it can sometimes be quite difficult to restore the work. However, it only happens a few times before hitting the save button becomes a reflex!

The Ugly

The ugly is definitely the mountain of paper files I have on my desk (apologies to everyone else in the office!). When you are handling over 50 years of historical data, it can get a little bit chaotic!