I have always enjoyed working outside and have a love of our Natural history.  I have been working in various roles within the trust for nearly 16 years. During that time I worked at all of Northamptonshire's nature reserves for the first 2 years. 

After that I was involved with fenland restoration at the Great Fen project for nearly a decade. I then moved on and worked at Grafham Water until the Trust left during Spring. Since April I am now working 3 days a week with the East Cambridgeshire Reserves team. 

If you see me on any of our reserves, please feel free to have a chat.  

Working as a reserves officer, our days are always different. It is often physically demanding, working in the woods and protecting our natural landscape as best we can. 

One day you can find yourself dealing with hazardous trees to make safe or sorting out fencing to protect the site, dealing with livestock issues, oh and dealing with members of the public who sometimes don't understand what a nature reserve is. 

We can be found organising contractors for works on the site, doing botanical surveys with the wider countryside team, we might do other surveys, working with maps and communicating to the public in person or writing pieces like this. We have many skills that are called upon, normally at a moment's notice so we often must think on our feet! 

So, the next time you see a reserve officer working on a site (it doesn't have to be me!), give us a friendly wave and perhaps start up a conversation, you never know where it might lead, but you will always get a friendly professional response and a sense of pride in what we are trying to achieve! 

In Cambourne we organised grazing contracts and hay cuts, which on this site requires lots of ragwort removal. This work is mostly done by volunteers, and we are very grateful for their help. This year we have also had volunteers pulling ragwort in Fulbourn, and are trying to organise a new water supply in Fulbourn (ongoing). 

From July onwards we have spent a lot of time mowing our woodland rides and mowing the grassland in Cambourne, slowed slightly by a spate of punctured tyres on the tractor!