Week Ending 2nd March 2014

And so we find ourselves in March already, and most of this week has been spent gearing up to start our new placement at Occombe Farm tomorrow. The week has flown by, and we have once again spent large chunks of it studying away!

We had been hoping to complete the course before taking on the new position, but alas we've not quite been able to do it. As we will be taking on more units of a Level 3 diploma as part of our new placement it looks like we may be working a 37.5 hour week as well as trying to study 2 diplomas simultaneously! Nobody can say that we do things the easy way!

At least there is not far to go with the current diploma, as we are currently mid way through the final unit. Probably around another 4 weeks and we will be there. We will have packed a 12 month course into 6 months, and as such we only have to pay half of the year's tuition fees which is a bonus!

The most exciting moment of the week was had over at Berry Head, where we went to help release a few Guillemots and Razorbills that had been contaminated with oil following the recent storms. They had been rehabilitated by the RSPCA and after several weeks rest were ready to make their way back out into the wild again. Vicky helped release some of the birds from their boxes, while I took up my position alongside the BBC camera crew to get a few snaps of the action.

These 3 weren't in a hurry to go anywhere!

Most of the birds immediately flew away off of the cliffs, while others seemed keen to hang around for a bit of publicity before making their way off out to sea. Hopefully the conditions out there will treat them a bit better this time around!

A Razorbill (near left) and 2 Guillemots freshly released

A short video of one of the releases is available here: Guillemot Release

Amusing stories have seemed a little light on the ground this week, but the idea of this potential new sport made me smile....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26270603

Have a good week everybody!

Week Ending 23rd February 2014

The couple of weeks since I last blogged have been certainly some of the busiest, but equally possibly the least exciting in recent history.

The good news that comes out of all of it is that Vicky and I have both been accepted to stay and complete a full 9 month training post with at Occombe Farm, which puts to bed weeks of speculation over what was going to happen next. We didn't find out until our very last day of work, which meant that had we not been selected to stay we would have had to pack our caravan and move out in the space of one evening! Fortunately though we needn't pack anything just yet, and although we will be moving to new accommodation (this time actually made of bricks and mortar, and with a sea view!) that will be a gradual process over the coming weeks.

Most of our recent days have been pretty boring to the outsider as we have sat in our office studying, writing essays and presentations to try and finish our diploma. Indeed some nights, having arrived in the office at 8.30am, we haven't left until 1.30am the following morning (with suitable breaks to check on the score of the curling though!).

The half term week saw us help out with the children's trail that the farm was hosting. While it was still very busy, with around 470 children taking part, it wasn't half as bad as the 1100 children that attended the Halloween trail in the October half term. The recent weather I don't doubt will have played some part in that, with some parts of the trail now looking more like a pig wallow than a woodland!

As per normal dressing up for the kid's trail was compulsory!

We did manage a short trip home (only back for a day and a half) to celebrate Vicky's Dad's 65th birthday, and 14 other family members also battled their way through the horrid driving conditions to be there on the day as well. The food at the restaurant we chose was great though and a great time was had by all. 

The last 2 days have been a revelation as we have finally achieved 24 hours without rain! We took a break yesterday from the relentless studying to go for a walk down to Cockington Country Park. While snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils have been evident for a few weeks now (such has been the mildness of the winter), we were still not expecting to be seeing bees and butterflies yet which are now already starting to make an appearance! Let's hope we don't get a bad cold spell come along and kill them all off.

The rangers have been busy clearing the paths between Occombe and Cockington

This weeks news story comes from the USA. This has got to be the most over the top way to deal with a vending machine that didn't quite work properly. Enjoy....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26282532

See you next time :)

Week Ending 9th February 2014

So here we are, into our final week at Occombe Farm! 

The last week has once again brought more than it's fair share of rain, and if it carries on at this rate I could be asking for snorkeling equipment for my birthday this year!

Although it has been wet it has in truth been an incredibly busy week, and all said and done I only worked one day actually at the farm.

This little Great Tit made the most of a break in the rain!

Throughout the week Vic and I have been helping to run a teacher training course down at Warren Barn, our local bunkhouse residential site. People have come from across the area to stay for the week and learn all of the information and skills that they will need to teach children about the marine environment, and over the next number of months they will put what they have learnt into a diploma style scheme in order to achieve a qualification.

We've looked at recreational uses for the marine world, looked into the processes and feasability of sustainable fishing, covered rock pooling techniques and identification skills and most importantly how to keep everybody safe while they are by the sea.

On Wednesday Vic and I went to Honiton where we spent the day taking a course in riding All Terrain Vehicles, quad bikes in this case. It's surprising how many jobs require you to be able to use one of these, especially if they cover a large area or have awkward terrain.

In keeping with the rest of the week the weather was terrible on the day, and a 40 minute journey ended up taking us over 2 hours with the number of roads blocked by trees, floods and power cables. Driving slightly further afield from the farm really highlighted how luckily we've got away with the recent bad weather, as we have no rivers to burst their banks and we are a couple of miles from the sea. Some of the fields we were passing were under 4 or 5 feet of water, and in most cases the very tops of fence posts sticking out of the water were the only indication that the water was not supposed to be there.

Despite spending all day riding the bikes around in the rain and hail, we did enjoy ourselves and our waterproofs actually kept us bone dry! Both of us passing the course was obviously the main priority, and our aching bodies were very relieved when he handed us the forms to say that we had passed!

Through the rain spotted lens 2 very wet riders heading back to the dry and warm office

So this week the Winter Olympics in Sochi got under way, and congratulations must go to Jenny Jones who has won Britain's first ever medal in an event held on snow. Well done Jenny! 
Some of the athletes haven't been impressed with their accommodation in the Olympic village though, and among them is Johnny Quinn whose bobsleigh training earns him the honour of making it into my amusing story of the week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/winter-olympics/26096612 

See you all next time!

Week Ending 2nd February 2014

It's February already, and I've spent most of the week wondering where the last 5 months have gone since we arrived here at Occombe! We have only 2 weeks remaining on our contracts here and the future is still not really any clearer.

The rain has continued to fall most days, washing away the paths around the farm yet again. At least the ducks seem to be enjoying themselves! Needless to say that the drainage ditch project from the Anderson shelter is still not finished, and with preparations for the farm's next children's event in full swing it seems to  be sliding even further down the priority list!

Vicky and I went to Berry Head (a local nature reserve run by the Trust) for our biggest project of the week. Our diploma requires us to complete a practical habitat improvement task which we then have to report on, and so we chose to go and lend the Berry Head team a hand in clearing some of their heathland which has become overgrown.

Before: Very overgrown and inaccessible

Lowland heathland of this nature is now a scarce habitat in the UK, although what we do have makes up 20% of the entire world's lowland heathland area. By using brushcutters and a variety of other tools, we systematically removed all of the scrub that had grown across the area to allow the heather (which is currently lying dormant under the soil) the light and space that it will require to regrow. 

After: Back to bare earth so that the heather can regrow

All of the removed scrub was burnt in a controlled fire, to avoid it rotting down and adding unwanted nutrients to the area. 

This morning saw the first real patch of sun that we had seen all week, and being our day off we decided to take a slow walk through the meadows and the forest around the farm to see what bird life we could find. 

This Pheasant was trying his luck for any food dropping from the feeders above

At the bottom of the orchard we were privileged to see a male Cirl Bunting (a very rare bird in the UK whose distribution is limited to the south coastal region of Devon). 2 Goldcrests (the UK's smallest bird), a Heron, a Green Woodpecker and a male Pheasant were all on the mornings sightings list along with many of the common birds that are seen in their hundreds around here.

This Green Woodpecker's loud call gave his hiding place away!

This weeks amusing news story comes from America, and goes to show how far a man's love for his motorcycle can take him...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25987743

See you all next time :)

Week Ending 26th January 2014

It's the end of what has been a mentally rather than physically tiring week for us down in Devon.

Most of our spare time has been dominated by the question of what happens once our last 3 weeks here at Occombe are finished. For several weeks now we've been trawling through the job adverts weighing up pros against cons, and trying to judge whether swings or roundabouts are better for you. The answer after all of this soul searching is still not clear.

It's especially difficult when your head and your heart constantly pull you in opposing directions, and you are never quite sure which one to listen to. We've now sent in applications for a couple of different jobs (including one to stay here at Occombe), and I guess we'll just have to see how they get on. Sod's law is the one that we want the most is the one that's last to recruit, and so we may take another job only to find that we could have got the one we wanted. Equally if we turn down another offer first there's no guarantee that we'll even get an interview for it!

Whatever happens I'm sure we will have fun whichever direction we go in, and the only truly bad situation would be that we end up with none of them! 

Going for a walk through the woods

Our drainage trench at the back of the Anderson Shelter is still not completed as the flooding did not subside until the middle of the week, and pressures on out time meant that other things had to take priority when the weather actually did play ball! When it is finished (and the rain stops for long enough to get the camera out) I will take a couple of photos of the shelter and pop them on here as I know a few of you are keen to see it.

This week has seen us down at the seaside for a couple of days, with a coastal geography lesson on the cards for a few groups of school children. We have been helping them to discover the problems of coastal erosion by making them build a mini Torbay coastline out of sand, which is then subjected to some imitation waves (courtesy of a bucket of sea water). The challenge for the children is then to rebuild their model, but this time with coastal defences (such as sea walls built of rocks and stones) and we compare what differences their defences make to the erosion that their model suffers.

On another day we were filmed taking a small group of children rock pooling as part of a new promotional video for the Trust. So before too long there will be such a video out there on the internet with both of us being interviewed!

The great office reshuffle of 2014 is still in full swing, and much of our time has been taken by helping to pack up various offices and all their resources and move them to a new location (normally to find that the builders haven't quite finished yet!). 

This last weekend we got a chance to catch up with our friend Stuart with whom we worked on Flat Holm. Stu is now a trainee with the Devon Wildlife Trust living just up the road from us outside of Exeter. A few drinks were enjoyed by all as we caught up on our latest escapades!

Wildlife sightings have been few and far between this week with most of the animals doing the sensible thing for once and staying out of the rain! There were still a few birds down at the hide though where I was trying to keep myself dry during one of the showers!

A Bull Finch and a Blue Tit enjoying some sunflower seeds

This weeks news story is all about birds and comes from the Vatican. The white doves that the Pope releases are of course a well known sign of peace. However a Herring Gull and a Crow show what they think of this display of peace. They always say never work with animals....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25905108

See you next time! 

Week Ending 19th January 2014

It's been a quiet (and rainy) week here at Occombe Farm, with very few people tempted to come out in the bad weather. The weather continues to be remarkably mild for this time of year, although one day this week did bring quite a crisp frost with it.

The frosted details on the leaves looked amazing!

The main task of the week has actually been prompted by the bad weather, as the Anderson shelter in our wartime garden has been continuously flooding in the heavy rain. With anywhere up to 2 feet of water inside it has remained off limits to the public for quite some time, and so the decision was made to install a drainage system.

With the shelter already being buried half way into the ground there was a lot of digging involved to simply reach the base of the shelter where the pipe would be installed, followed by an even deeper trench that the pipe would then run off into. Finally even more digging would then create a soak away at the end of the pipe to take away all the water. The largest issue came in the form of the ground already being saturated, making the heavy clay soil here even heavier.

The start of the great dig, before the monsoon that followed around an hour later!

With the rain continually falling while we were digging the trench began to fill up around us, with our bailing out efforts not keeping pace with the water coming in! After 4 days of battling the elements we had to accept that the weather would have to improve and the water subside before we can finish the job. At the time of writing the water level is still an inch or so above the top of the trench, so finishing the job tomorrow is not looking likely!

Despite the bad weather, the birds have still been out in force with flocks of redwings, several herons and woodpeckers all being spotted on the farm.

Great Spotted Woodpecker hiding in the tree

Green Woodpecker down on the ground searching for ants

While the squirrels may be a nuisance eating all of the bird food they are still pretty cute!

Our application to work on the Calf of Man has unfortunately been unsuccessful. After making the shortlist we were not selected for an interview, but it is good to know that we are not falling at the first hurdle for these types of  job now. We still have a couple more irons in the fire so to speak, and we will wait and see what comes of them. 

This weeks odd news story comes from Japan, and highlights an old tradition for bridegrooms that I am glad we do not have in this country!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-25777727

See you next time!

Week Ending 5th January 2014

So here we are in 2014! I hope that you all had a good Christmas and hopefully 2014 will be a good year for you all.

It's been a few weeks since I blogged last, so apologies to those of you that have been waiting patiently. If there were two words I could use to sum up the last few weeks they would be wet and windy. Certainly while we have been down in Devon I have never known an area to get so much rain, and the ground here has gone well beyond saturation point. I guess that it's a blessing that we are not any nearer the sea or a river on the farm down here otherwise flooding would become a serious consideration. The wet weather isn't bad for everybody though as these visiting ducks proved after the copious rain filled a ditch, forming a nice lake for them to swim on!

Nice weather for ducks!

The wind has been equally as strong, and on some nights we sit watching a film feeling the caravan rocking in the wind around us. It is a step up from a tent however, and it makes me think back to some of the terrible storms we camped through in various parts of the world!

It was great to get home and see friends and family for a short while at Christmas, and as you would expect there was certainly the feeling of eating too much good food afterwards! It was also nice to be a little lazy for a while as we put the studying on the back burner for quite a few of our "home days".

Merry Christmas everybody!

The course seems to be going well on the whole, and we are now approaching the point where we are about two thirds of the way through. It would be nice to see if we can finish it by the time our contract finishes in Devon, but as that is only 6 weeks away it might be cutting it a little fine!

Where we will be come 6 weeks time however still remains a mystery. We are going to apply to stay at the farm for a further 9  months in a similar capacity, which would also bring some extra qualifications along with it. We have also applied for a paid position  as wardens on the Calf of Man, and so we will wait and see how that application goes. If all else fails we do have some work lined up from June onward with the Kent Wildlife Trust, but at only 3 days a week and with no accommodation it falls behind the other two in terms of our current preferences.

So the real work begins again next week as the rest of the team come back to the farm following the Christmas break. It's going to be a busy time as there is a departmental shake up underway and we are all having to move offices as well as making space for a few new staff. Fingers crossed it will all run smoothly.

As a last resort should we not get a new job straight away, I could always try and use this blog to sell my skills to potential employers; much like this man from the Netherlands did....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-25574651

Have a good week everybody!