Wildlife Survey Volunteer (Reserves)
Wildlife Survey Volunteer (Reserves)
Location: Winchester area, to include:
Times/days we'd like you to be available: March to September. As little as once per month, or more regularly, depending on your own availability. This can be weekdays or weekends.
Purpose of role: Our nature reserves are incredibly special places for wildlife, and we are looking to recruit volunteers to help us complete a variety of surveys. To help us ensure the work our reserves teams are carrying out is having the best possible impact for wildlife, we need to increase our survey work to help us inform all the work that we are doing on a daily basis.
Tasks involved in this role: These surveys will include, but may not be limited to:
- Butterfly transects
- Reptile surveys (checking reptile refugia)
- Bird surveys
Different aspects of the role:
- Surveying for wildlife on our reserves
- Submitting ecological data to online databases
- Following HIWWT lone working policy, as well as health and safety policies and procedures
Training
- Training will be offered for ID and survey skills
- compulsory site(s) familiarisation visit with manager
- Resource and literature will be provided to help expand your knowledge of wildlife surveys
Skills and abilities needed
- For butterfly and bird surveys, a good level of knowledge on species ID is essential
- For our reptile transects, these are suitable for beginners or those with existing knowledge
- Good physical fitness as many of our sites have steep slopes and involve lots of walking
- Good organisational, record-keeping and data entry skills
- Basic IT skills to be able to submit records online
What's in it for you?
- Get to visit and explore new wildlife sites in your area, whilst spending time outdoors
- Get to see and engage with, from a distance, some of our rarer native wildlife species
- This post could be well-suited to those with existing wardening/lookering roles on our sites
- Training will be offered in species ID and survey techniques
- A great addition to your CV, helping to demonstrate to potential employers a good range of skills needed for the conservation sector
Expenses: Reimbursement of out-of-pocket travel costs between home and location of volunteering and other reasonable expenses agreed with HIWWT manager.