Hi everyone! I have started as Volunteering Support Officer at Northumberland Wildlife Trust this May. I know from my personal experience volunteering at NWT that we have so many amazing people helping us, and I'm excited to meet all of you over the coming months.

My personal focus with volunteer mentoring is on science communication and guided discovery: how we can use volunteering experiences to give back to volunteers and help them come away with real learnings. I also specialise in teaching volunteers how best to communicate complex ideas to the public in the most entertaining way, often through a mix of storytelling, humour, and engagement.

Along with helping with the day-to-day running of volunteer operations, I have a particular focus on the Osprey Watch project. Up at Tower Knowe you'll likely see me a couple of times a month as I learn and analyse what makes this such a wonderful project, teaching people about these incredible birds since 2009. I'll be taking these learnings forward into Osprey Watch 2027 to make sure it's the biggest and best one yet. I spent a lot of time growing up staying in and around the grounds of Kielder, and it's so interesting coming back with more of an ecologist's eyes, seeing how this historic site can also become a beacon of Northumberland conservation.

My connection to nature has been expanded in my recent time abroad, spending years coordinating volunteering in remote tropical climates across Latin America and using storytelling to teach people from all over the world about nature through coaching, mentoring, and workshops. Things move slower here in our temperate climate, meaning that rescuing nature can take longer here (a secondary tropical forest, by contrast, can regrow in as little as 50 years!) The biology of the world around us is incredibly dense and complex, and I often think about how we can condense that down into small, relatable stories to convey to people the importance of protecting the nature all around us. For example, our livestream cameras allow us to observe the behaviour of the Ospreys from up close and see how they have their own quirks such as bringing large lumps of bark back to the nest to chew (sometimes not welcomed by the chicks who find themselves with an impromptu bark roof). Although some have speculated there might be a reason for the bark chewing (follow the link for more info.)

Anecdotes are great, but where possible we should try and ground our stories in data. My earlier career as a data scientist and analyst for the NHS taught me this and still shapes how I think. Statistics themselves can be a rich source of stories, both oral and visual, as an example we need look no further than our Kielder Osprey UV’s tracking data, from his long migrations to and from Africa, he has such experience at cross country trips we’re considering renaming him to SUV!

Ospreys are important, but you find worldwide we’re often biased towards sharing information and funding projects concerning mammals and birds, so it's important for us as science communicators to link this back to the wider ecosystem. Without river fish, there'd be no Ospreys, and without invertebrates like shrimp and plankton, there'd be no fish. That means it's our responsibility to help the public see that connection. Ospreys sit at the apex of a delicate web of interlinked animals and plants, much like they sit high on their nests.

As volunteers and staff, we meet so many different people from every age and background, and even from many different countries! We should always be thinking about how we present information about the environment to each one according to their life experience, without going into too much detail. The great thing is since Ospreys are so widespread, even those from far away can take lessons about these birds to their own county or country.

Volunteering is such an important part of conservation work in the UK, and it's not just happening here. Nationally, conservation volunteering has been on a real upward climb too. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee noted that the number of people volunteering in conservation rose 62% between 2000 and 2023, a continuous upward trend except for during the pandemic. The aim should always be that volunteers are getting out just as much from this experience as they put in, if not more! Effective coordination requires knowing when to lead and when to support — the core of the coordinator is inspiring and enabling others to act.

I'll see you out there!

If you're interested in following my science communication and nature photography, you can find me at @crutters.critters on Instagram.

---

Do you have a skill you think would be good to show other volunteers? Is there a specific skill you'd like to learn that isn't currently offered by NWT? Let me know and we can start building this skills network!