Monday 5th August
2019
Earlier this year, the BTO announced yet
another fantastic opportunity for the young bird and nature lovers in the UK.
The BTO Young Leaders course, targeting 16–25-year-olds, was to be held over 4
summer days at the spectacular Spurn Bird Observatory in East Yorkshire, and
would be providing advice and support for the attendants on how to improve as a
leader. So on the 5th August, 9 young people met in the observatory
garden for the start of the course, which began with an icebreaker activity,
helping us to get to know one another.
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| Sunset at Kilnsea on day 1 - Alfie Bloor |
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| Willow Warbler - Arjun Dutta |
A rushed evening meal provided opportunity
for us to get to know each other a little better; after finishing, we all
headed down to Kilnsea Wetlands to twitch a White-rumped Sandpiper, which had
been regularly seen for almost a week prior. It was a top way to finish our
first evening! (AD & GJJ)
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| White-rumped Sandpiper - Jonathan Farooqi |
Tuesday 6th August
2019 (GJJ)
On the first morning, many of us ended up
getting up early at around 5:30am to head out for a spot of birding. Being
early in the migration season migrants were thinner on the ground than we would
have liked, but a juvenile Cuckoo and Yellow Wagtails flying over cheered us up
as were made our way back. After breakfast our day in the obs started at around
9am. We started off with a valuable workshop, about delivering Presentations,
and I’m sure everybody else gained a lot too!
Before the week each of the
attendees were asked to find a presentation which they had delivered
previously, so we each did a quick presentation about this. We had 2 or 3
minutes to deliver a part of the presentation, before receiving feedback on our
slides and presenting style.
The hardest thing about this
activity was that as we went along and as others received feedback, we could
spot mistakes and improvements before we even started our own talks. For
example, things like presentation style (too much text, small images and bad
use of colours) quickly became a recurring problem. However, it was really
useful to hear how we were as presenters, as it’s often a rather daunting
experience. Most of us felt a lot more confident by the end of the session. Everyone
did such a good job of putting across their passion for the subject they had
presented, but we all needed slight tweaks to make our speech as engaging as
the images on screen. (AH)
Our session after lunch on the second day was
run by Shaun Robson, a reserve warden from the RSPB, who focused on the
importance of partnership working in conservation. Using the case study of RSPB
Lytchett fields in Dorset, he highlighted the importance of conservation
efforts and partnering with people from all areas of life, from wildlife trusts
to politicians, councils and most importantly, the local community prior to
making his decisions. The benefits of increased exposure, acceptance and expert
advice also came with challenges, such as different groups having different
priorities and the time consuming nature of negotiations. The thing that most
struck me during this session was that, at the beginning of the talk, we were
asked to come up with something we had achieved alone, with no external
assistance. When we were later asked for our examples, nobody was truly able to
present an achievement solely of their own, with no input be it from teachers,
friends, family etc. This really emphasised how vital teamwork and partnership
is in our daily lives, and in successful conservation schemes. Although it can
be both challenging and time-consuming, the rewards of successful collaboration
can be significant and can lead to further successes in the future.
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| Discussing leadership - Gethin Jenkin-Jones |
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| Sunset from the beach - Luke Hawkins |
As I’m someone who only hears tweets from
Chiffchaffs and spends more time watching Whinchats than group chats, I felt
that the penultimate talk on Tuesday led by Faye about social media was
particularly fascinating! There’s more strategy to it than any of us thought,
and with technology becoming more and more important to the world, it was
extremely important to learn about how is best to use it. For all of us,
including some of us who had very little social media, it introduced us to new
ways of opening up new doors for ourselves. Later on, in our final few hours of
the day, we had the most bizarre (yet enjoyable) session of the entire weekend
– we were to have a lesson in networking with a fake conference party (!).
Before it started we were each given a task to complete during this ‘party’
(such as forming a partnership or raising a certain amount of money). Then,
using a combination of our social skills, wits and charm we were to try and
achieve our tasks by talking to the BTO staff – each of which were acting in a
certain role, such as a politician, and a philanthropist. With all of it purely
acting, it was hard to keep a straight face at times. Not only was it difficult
for all of us, as it was very much outside our comfort zones, it was
surprisingly educational and a laugh, with Jonnie Fisk (Obs Estate Manager) joining
the leaders to add to the fun - it was a surreal experience and a learning
curve so steep Guillemots were making their nests on it! (LH)
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| Networking and evangelising session - Nick Moran |
Some of us spent the evening birding (and
dipping on the local family of Marsh Warblers) before heading to the pub to end
a tiring but intensely interesting first full day at Spurn.
Wednesday 7th
August 2019
As
Wednesday morning dawned nice and sunny, most of us were up and out early for
some more birding, with some good migrant birds seen in particular. Once
everyone had returned to the observatory our day began again; for our first
task, we were to choose a conservation project, and pick a famous or reputable
person to contact about supporting it. This allowed us to think about and get
feedback for ideas in order to publicise and get support for conservation
projects, which is incredibly important. I personally chose the issue of a lack
of Common Swift nest boxes and how to mitigate this, but struggled to think of
a suitable person to support, until another Young leader (creatively) suggested
Taylor Swift! This really helped us to think outside the box, which we now know
to be a surprisingly useful skill. This exercise was a brilliant start to the
day, and really developed our influential skills, with much of the morning
dedicated to learning more about this. (AB)
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| Wood Sandpiper - Arjun Dutta |
We then had a session run by Faye and Nick W,
where we learnt about how to prepare and run a meeting. We learned how to
divide up the time in the meeting in order to maximize efficiency and minimize
the time wasted for the attendees. We also discussed how a meeting can be held
effectively enough to be beneficial for concentration and to achieve the
desired outcome, as well as learning about how to chair it and how to behave
when attending one ourselves. This session was very useful at establishing an
understanding of work etiquette for our future, regardless of what career paths
we may follow.
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| Brown Hare - Samuel Levy |
To follow up a session on meetings, Nick
Moran chaired a discussion on the topic of ‘walking the walk’. This was to
discuss how important it is to maintain the beliefs of your organization during
your personal life. For example, Greta Thunberg is a climate change activist
and to travel for speeches and conferences, she uses public transport and boats
in order to minimize her carbon footprint. Would it be hypocritical for her to
campaign for a cause if she was undermining the points made during her personal
life, for example by taking frequent plane journeys? This was the type of topic
that we discussed during our session. It was very interesting to hear a variety
of views on the thought-provoking subject, helping me to reflect on my own
personal beliefs. (MM)
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| An early morning walk to Kilnsea - Samuel Levy |
After lunch on the third day it was a chance
for all of us to lead a guided walk. This could be on absolutely anything, not
just wildlife, so we could develop our skills. I was up first and I decided
that the theme of the walk should be on Warblers and migrant birds. What I
hadn’t realised was just how difficult it was going to be leading a walk with everyone
trying to throw all the possible worst-case scenarios at us. My plan was to go
a fair distance down the road however by the end of my allotted time we had
managed to get to the back of the garden. Thankfully the garden was full of
warblers making my walk slightly easier despite the distractions, which also
included bizarre questions and someone playing a tape lure…
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| The challenges of leading a walk... - Amy Hall |
I think everyone was surprised at just how
different all the walks and activities were. Amy’s activity included a comical
game of wink murder, which tested her ability of dealing with a medical
emergency. In this case, Nick Moran collapsing on the floor! Next up was Megan’s
Pictionary game where participants were given a bird that they had to draw and
the rest of us had to guess what the bird was. This helped us to learn about
leading activities for a variety of ages. Following this, Alfie led a walk
looking at the different species of plants (particularly trees) in the observatory’s
garden. This brought out some hilarious moments, with the walk eventually
finishing with everyone laughing uncontrollable. All because of Alfie replying to Nick’s
question of ‘What does the scientific name of Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)
actually mean?’ with the simple answer of ‘It just means Hawthorn!’ With Alfie keeping a cool head, it meant his
walk was extremely successful.
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| Whinchat on a morning walk - Arjun Dutta |
Gethin then led a Bat Walk, which was great
fun. Since it had to be ‘dark’ outside, this created a whole new array of
problems… Thankfully Gethin had already thought about this and was ready for
anything that was thrown his way. Next up was Luke’s turn to lead a walk. Luke
had the great idea of getting us all to head to the Humber and perform a
practise WeBS (Wetland Bird Survey) count. He was confronted with all sorts of
issues including keeping people off the road, teaching people how to use binoculars
and some of us getting distracted by a funnel cloud that started to descend
from the clouds above, adding to the thrill of Spurn. The penultimate walk was
led by Jonny and was a birding walk, where we stayed around the Humber area,
‘learning’ to ID a variety of bird species. Jonny made sure he would describe
every species he saw, to make sure that everyone – including beginners – would
be able to feel comfortable.
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| Spoonbill on Kilnsea wetlands - Samuel Levy |
Finally, it was Arjun’s turn. This turned
into a complete disaster, foreshadowed by the weather which went from clear and
sunny to dark and rainy. After a brief introduction inside on how to use technology
and apps in order to identify and record species, it was time to head outside
and see what we could find. However, after Arjun had provided us with some of
the most annoying situations, everyone made his life difficult, with people
getting stuck in toilets, talking to real people in phone calls and
disappearing - some may say that he is still looking for them!
The point of this afternoon
was for the leaders to look at our personalities and how we dealt with
different pressures. It was also interesting for us to learn about situations
that we may come across when guiding future walks and how to handle them, as
well as being thoroughly enjoyable. Reflecting on this over a month later, I
realise that actually I learnt a lot, but I didn’t realise it at the time, as
the others and I were having such a great time (which is one of the best ways
of learning!) Our final session at Spurn finished with planning our activity
for the next morning, taking into account all skills already learned.
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| Panorama of Kilnsea - Samuel Levy |
Our final, awesome evening meal in the Crown
and Anchor was well-spent and louder than it had been on Monday, made all the
merrier when we remembered it was Ceri’s 18th Birthday. There’s
probably no better place in the UK to spend it than Spurn… Then we all decided
to hang around the observatory, where we had a fantastic time enjoying each
other’s company, relaxing and even spending a few hours playing cricket in the
dark with a sponge ball and a piece of fire-wood! (SL)
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| Ceri's 18th birthday - Amy Hall |
Thursday 8th August
2019
On our final morning, it was a final chance
to get up early one last time to experience the amazing area by the
observatory. After some early morning birding, we all returned to the obs ready
to lead an activity which we had been given a few days to prepare for.
Following Amy’s fascinating role play where we acted in different roles for a
Hen Harrier Reintroduction scheme, we started the day with a light-hearted,
animal emoji quiz organised by Alfie, which was unsurprisingly competitive!
Luke then started an interesting, environmental debate, which really brought
out some interesting views from all of us, while Gethin continued with a British
wildlife quiz, testing our understanding of conservation techniques used in the
UK. Before we went outside, Ceri led a well-planned, detailed ‘classroom-like’ situation,
which cleverly highlighted the importance humans have in protecting nature.
With the sun shining in the warmest day of the week, Megan began a competitive
bird race in the nearby area, with the two teams managing to see some decent
species including a juvenile Cuckoo. To finish off the activities, we both organised
a Bioblitz of the obs garden, where we recorded as many species as possible in
our given time, before we headed back inside so Sam could lead a research task
on some of the animals we’d seen. Not only did we see and note some interesting
species, but also got to learn some fascinating facts about some common British
creatures.
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| Arjun and Jonny's BioBlitz from the migration platform - Nick Moran |
Our last morning had so far been awesome, and
after a relaxed lunch spending time talking to each other, we had time to speak
individually to the leaders of the course, where we were given advice specific
to ourselves, to help our own leadership in nature activities in the future. We
also had the chance to give back feedback on how we thought the week had gone,
so that future years’ could be even better.
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| The BTO Young Leaders 2019! |
Once we’d done this, we spent some time
analysing how to measure success. For us, we all agreed the week had been
extremely useful and every one of us enjoyed it. This brought an end to the
Young Leaders Course, and we could only thank the 4 real leaders for their
incredible effort over the 4 days; thanks to Nick Moran, Faye Vogely, Nick
Whitehouse and Shaun Robson, for organising such a beneficial, enjoyable event,
that we would all fondly remember. Also many thanks to the BTO, and to Spurn
Bird Observatory for hosting us.
(AD, JF)
Thank you for reading, and
hopefully Spurn will be welcoming you next year. J
This year's Young Leaders were:
Alfie
Bloor @martes_martes_
Amy Hall @AmyHallWildlife
Arjun
Dutta @ArjunDutta215
Ceri Archer @CeriArcher
Gethin Jenkin-Jones
Jonathan Farooqi @jonathanfarooqi
Luke
Hawkins
Samuel Levy @FinchleyBirder
