Blogs

Guest blog by Emily Seccombe. Emily is the Mentoring Officer for ‘A Focus on Nature’ (AFON),  the UK's youth nature network. They are a voluntary organisation led by young people and aim to connect, support and inspire young people with an interest in nature and conservation and provide a voice for the youth conservation movement.  AFON run a mentoring scheme for young people aspiring to work in or already working in conservation, linking them with professionals who can provide support and guidance through their careers. 

I’m Charlie and I work for The Royal Parks on Mission: Invertebrate, a project supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery that aims to help discover, celebrate and protect the invertebrates that call the parks their home. Invertebrates have always fascinated me - I am always keen to discover more about them. And what’s great about these species is that there are always so many new things to unearth! This is how volunteering, recording centres, and BioLinks courses have benefitted me.

The Easter holidays are fast approaching so to celebrate we've got some amazing offers on selected publications with up to 35% off online orders until 14 April 2020.

Find out more about the FSC Easter Sale!

I won a place on the "Tomorrow's Invertebrate Recorders" course - a week long residential programme for young people run by the FSC BioLinks project  and A Focus On Nature providing an introduction to surveying invertebrates. When I reflected upon the abundance of experiences and skills I’d gained during ​Tomorrow’s  Invertebrate Recorders, ​I was surprised to note how valuable the week had been from a social  perspective. 

Are you a nature enthusiast? Do you have experience in species identification and wildlife surveys? Would you like the opportunity to visit protected sites, contribute to TVERC’s records, and play a role in the success of the Berkshire Local Wildlife Sites Project? You may be able to help us with survey work!

During my first FSC course, I attended a workshop identifying Wasps. After being well and truly bitten by the entomology bug, I attended some more courses and not long after I bought myself a microscope and felt confident enough to carry out my own surveys. I was then asked to start assisting the teaching of some FSC BioLinks courses and later won a place on one of their week long residential courses for young people, the "Tomorrows Invertebrate Recorders" . Read more about how the FSC and the FSC BioLinks project has helped me...

I work for the Jersey Biodiversity Centre as the Education and Outreach Officer.  I won a place on the "Tomorrow's Invertebrate Recorders" course - a week long residential programme for young people (aged 18-25) run by the FSC BioLinks project and A Focus On Nature, providing an introduction to surveying invertebrates. It was amazing and rewarding to meet other invertebrate enthusiasts, and on returning home I had heaps of energy and enthusiasm to inspire more recorders.

It’s lovely to be proved wrong sometimes. FSC BioLinks Project Officer, Charlie Bell, approached her recent Project Management for Wildlife Conservation training course with a fair bit of trepidation.  How could group training sessions possibly work well online? And would the course actually be useful in the ‘real world’? (Spoiler: it really is useful!) Find out more in this review. 

Lorna is a PhD student at Cardiff University studying the variation in the diet of British Otters.  She won a place on the "Tomorrow's Invertebrate Recorders" course - a week long residential programme for young people run by the FSC BioLinks project  and A Focus On Nature providing an introduction to surveying invertebrates.  She tells us about how it helped her improve her invertebrate ID skills. 

Liv Cairns’ passion for the natural world was instilled when she was awarded the Field Studies Council Young Darwin Scholarship in 2013. Beginning with a week long residential, she has since attended an FSC course annually and gained a space on the FSC BioLinks/A Focus On Nature ‘Tomorrow’s Invertebrate Recorders’ .