Having a work experience placement at Froglife was one of the most educational and amusing things that I’ve ever done. Although it was just a short week, it consisted of all you could ever want! It ranged from being in the office, carrying out the daily jobs that needed to be completed, to visiting one of the biggest nature reserves I have ever seen, and doing a reptile survey, checking under different materials to spot reptiles.
My name is Harry and I am going to tell you about my week work experience at Froglife…
Monday. This was my first day at Froglife and although I was a little nervous, I was still very excited about my week to come. I was first introduced to everyone in the office and was explained their roles. I was then told what my week ahead would consist of, and then spent the day in the office carrying out general office duties and helping other people with a variety of jobs. To end the day off, I got to have a short talk to two people at Froglife who told me more in depth info about their roles and what they have been doing to achieve it.
Tuesday. I was invited to go to a school to meet other children who were taking part in the green pathways project. At the school we took the three children that we met to the primary school which is where they would learn about ‘The Perfect Pond’, a book written by Froglife. We then read and taught some of the year two students about it, I found this very fun as it was something that I had never done before. In the afternoon, I went out to one of their nature reserves, Boardwalks, where I had a tour around the whole nature reserve and I saw my first grass snake which was hiding under one of the mats they had put down, I also saw how many ponds that they had built or restored, and was able to watch one while they were digging it.
Wednesday. I was involved with the green pathways project again today, but this time there was a 1-hour drive to a nature reserve where we met a group of children who were all very excited about what was about to happen. We were told that we would walk around the whole reserve as a group, and would stop every-so often to be told about a certain animal or plant which we had seen on the reserve, this consisted of: Snails, plants, flowers, bees, birds and bird songs. Once we got around half way round we were hoping to see sand martins nesting in an artificial nesting ground in the side of a wall, unfortunately there were no sand martins to be seen, although we were not disappointed as when we arrived at the bird hide we saw many different species of birds, and the one that stood out for me was the bull finch as it was a bright orange colour. The day concluded by getting an explanation on the follow up of what happens after days out like this one.
Thursday. I was very excited for this day as I was going to go to Hampton nature reserve which is where I was going to be taking part in a reptile survey. We would do this by lifting up all the mats that they had placed down in different sectors and recording any reptiles that we see. Unfortunately it rained the whole morning which meant that it was not ideal to be wading through the long wet grass. Despite the weather, we did go into the nature reserve to lift up a small fraction of the mats and we did see around five slow worms, one being very big which I got to see up close. We had to then cut the survey short which meant I spent the afternoon in the office drying off whilst doing some general jobs.
Friday. This was my final day at Froglife, and I spent the morning in the office typing this blog and then in the afternoon we had a BBQ to end the week, which I enjoyed very much.
Overall, I would like to thank everyone at Froglife for everything they have done for me as I have had many new experiences and learnt many new skills that I will not forget any time soon.
