My career has been in nature conservation including work with Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and National Trust.I am now retired but love spending time outdoors wildlife watching or walking with my Border Collie Hamish. I also enjoy writing about nature and landscape and have a special love for the North Norfolk coast.
I volunteer as a reserve guide at NWT Cley and Salthouse Marshes and also sometimes help answer wildlife questions for NWT’s Wildline. I enjoy sharing my love of nature with others. Leading guided walks and volunteering as a reserve guide gives me the opportunity to show people wildlife. It’s especially rewarding to share wildlife spectacles and enable visitors to see nature in new ways.
Visiting the reserve every week makes me very aware of the changing wildlife and landscape. It’s a privilege to see birds arriving in the spring – wheatears, warblers, swallows and terns. To see the first pink-feet, wigeon and brent geese arrive in the autumn.There are wildlife bonuses too, such as seeing kingfishers or occasionally otters. But really every visit is special even if its just sharing a close view of some of the commoner species on the reserve. Who could not be inspired by the plumage of a drake teal in sunlight or watching a flock of waders twist and turn over the scrape pools?
I love meeting such a wide range of visitors and hearing what inspires them about nature and helping them make the most of their visit to the reserve. I have learnt a lot from NWT staff and other volunteers and have made some good friends over the four years I have been volunteering at Cley and Salthouse Marshes
When asked if David would recommend volunteering with NWT, he said:
Yes! A chance to get to know wonderful wild places, meet people who care about nature and in a small way contribute to NWT’s work in protecting wildlife and very special nature reserves.