Reflecting on how the skills learned on the MSc in Conservation and Ecosystem Management have helped our current students in their next stage of life. Not goodbye, but au revoir

So sad to be saying goodbye to our MSc Conservation and Ecosystem Management students – it has been a year! And also very excited to say hello to our new cohort. I hope they had a good week. Highlights for me was the talks from our current students, particularly Nico’s on Terns, then the zoom call (which I was ridiculously anxious about – but thoroughly enjoyed thanks to the speakers below). And today we went to one of my (many) favourite places in Northumberland, Hauxley – run by the Wildlife Trust – to watch the birds and walk along the beach looking for fossils and crabs!

… and anyway – we’re not saying goodbye, but hasta luego and bis später and until next time

Thanks to our external speakers, Marjorie Davey (Natural England); Nick Sotherton (Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust); Tom Dearnley (Forestry England) and James Common (Natural History Society of Northumberland) for sharing how students can get involved with volunteering or with dissertations. Also NOV from Gateshead who sent through a slide show

Very proud of our (Biodiversity) Conservation and Ecosystem Management alumnus, Natasha Helmsley for organising an excellent Bioblitz for Northumberland Wildlife Trust up on Benshaw Moss last Sunday. I can’t really take credit for her success as I was not DPD then. Natasha also has responsibility with Kielder Wildwood, I believe, replacing her BCEM peer, Steven…And between these two sites is Hareshaw Linn where Tash did her dissertation…And at the other end of the spectrum, Bridie – who got the credit for identifying all the species in the Molinia flush – will be starting with us next week. Really looking forward to it, Bridie and everyone else.
Thanks for the chocs, btw, Tash – I was disproportionately pleased with them, you’ll go far if you give your volunteer helpers such treats!

Not all our students do fieldwork. Typical labwork includes measuring pollutants or nutrients in water or soil.
Rafef has been looking at innovative, new growth media for lettuce grown in hydroponic systems, under the expert supervision of Dr Elisa Lopez-Capel. This is maybe a bit more removed from conservation and ecosystem management directly, but it is protecting ecosystems by reducing pesticide and fertilizer damage in the environment

This is two different bogs on two different days – Jamie is on Coom Rigg National Nature Reserve and SSSI in the middle of Kielder Forest a couple of weeks ago. We are working with Marjorie in Natural England to develop a model to measure temporal and spatial change in bog quality using satellite images. Here he is is collecting data for its development and his dissertation on this pretty high quality bog.
Sam is on a restored bare peat site, where we are working with the North Pennines AONB, on a replicated block experiment, testing phosphorus and lime requirements used in restoration. She came for a fun day out adding to her plant ID skills. She learnt, as it turned out, how to identify very dried up moorland mosses – among other things.
We watched a golden plover circling over us in the morning. This then became 10, then 20 and soon there were nearly 200 plover gathering and calling before they spent the rest of the day feeding on a patch of heather 100 yards from us. Wonderful – golden plover might be my favourite bird.

Lisa has the privilege for her CEM dissertation to be assessing the methods of recording the rare and beautiful plants of Teesdale. She has met with the legendary Margaret Bradshaw and pretty legendary John O’Reilly of Ptyxis ecology to develop the project, which was John’s idea acutally. Here we are enjoying a perfect, sunny day up near Cow Green reservoir last week. She found yellow saxifrage, Scottish asphodel (my fave) and hoary whitlow grass (her fave). I love my job anyway, but days like this are absolutely divine. Thanks Lisa

Well graduation was proving to be a bit of a damp squid tbh – but that changed when I met up with Freya (forgot to take a pic – but colleague Julia got one) and Toby (remembered to take a pic, but with no thought to a beautiful background of arches or statues – oh well, who doesn’t love a red pillar box?)

Freya (Agriculture) and Toby (Environmental Science) have both been amazing inspirations and a strong overcomers to get to where they are and it has been such a privilege to share their journeys and I’m so pleased I got to see them at their graduations. Toby is off to Northumbrian Water and Freya to Velcourt to start the next part of their lives

I don’t know when I have had such a good group of undergraduate supervisees. It is always good to supervise projects, but these 4 hard-working, independent, resilient dissertation students all pulled it out of the hat – despite the struggles with Covid-19

Sarah and Sacha worked with Forestry England to answer questions that were important to them and that they don’t have the resources or the skills to answer otherwise
Emily identified data from Orca herself, and to be honest, pretty much independently produced a high quality dissertation and poster with very little input from me
And similarly, Robbie contacted and visitied and interviewed agro-forestry enterprises across the UK (well mostly in the south) – and we are now hoping to dip in to agro-forestry at our Cockle Park Farm.
And all of them our now starting new exciting jobs, in conservation, sustainability and the environment

One of my favourite places in the world and one of the best things to do, is a boat trip to the Farne Islands. Dr Janet Simkin and I were not allowed to go to the Farnes with our students so we went on our own – well, together on our own.

Only 8 on the little (Billy Shiel) boat, instead of the usual 30, so this was amazing. The mist came down just as we were coming back to land and it was the most exciting, choppiest, lowest visibility I have experienced. We had no idea whether we were heading for Seahouses or Denmark.

We saw sandwich terns (no Artic terns), puffins, guillemots (including bridled), razor bills, kitiwakes, gannets … and other gulls. Seals of course – but the dolphins who had been displaying yesterday and the last few days chose to stay hidden.

(If you notice a better quality of photograph, it is because Janet took all but one of them!)

Jo came to us as a mature student to study Countrside Management a few years back. It was not always an easy time for her, but she was intelligent, determined, resilient and good company too. I saw this on her LinkedIn account and asked if she could share it, and she said she was pleased to encourage others in a similar position. I hope it inspires and encourages someone else