The buzz word of April has been “exciting”, and I think that for Manx Wildlife Trust, the word sums it up beautifully. MWT have made the biggest land purchase (over 90 acres!) in their 50-year history thanks to Aviva’s funding. It is a huge achievement, and I am honoured to have been here to witness some of the behind the scenes leading up to the announcement.

Speaking of trees, Andree and I finished the tree planting season with the final couple of bags going in at the hairpin. Some of the previously planted trees were starting to show leaves as well so it is great to know that some have been successfully established.

Also at the Hairpin Woodland Park – I spent a few hours there finishing off the levelled paths that the corporate groups started so that we can now say that the work is complete! Now all that is left to do are finishing touches such as signage before it is officially open for business. All the hard work has paid off and it is something that everyone involved should be really proud of.

Another small project I have been working on is also complete – MWT now have a functional library for farmers who would like more information about flora, fauna, and conservation farming practices. It will be live on the website soon and is sure to be a great resource for any farmers wishing to learn more about these topics.

Lara asked me to assist with advertisement of the summer Calf Assistant Warden role as no applications were coming through. I spent some time emailing universities and putting the job up on their online boards for students to apply and I was happy to hear that she had had 2 new applications! I wish the applicants luck and I am very jealous of the successful applicant. I would apply if I wasn’t already on placement! I feel that since working with MWT I have had a rise in my confidence and cannot wait for my course to come to an end so that I can start applying for jobs and begin the next chapter.

I thought that I would finish my report on freshwater pearl mussels this month, but some obstacles meant that I may have to restart my data analysis. I did, however, manage to add some interesting sections on other factors that could contribute to the likelihood of a site being suitable such as geology of the area and land use. I produced a map of agricultural land, and after a very informative Teams call with David Quirk (Manx Geologist) who provided me with shapefiles, I produced a map of historic mining sites on the Island.

I have spent some time this moth learning about carbon footprints as I have been tasked with collating the data for the MWT annual GHG audit. It has been interesting to see have each factor contributes towards our total figure and I know it may be a useful skill to have in the future as this becomes the norm.

David took me to Cronk Y Bing to do some birding. I oversaw the eBird list and we counted 42 different species. With David teaching me nuggets each time we go out I am getting more comfortable in my own knowledge of waders and sea birds. I am always excited to see what new species we find. The collaboration between eBird and the Merlin bird ID app have been so useful in learning how to ID birds and I want to set myself the goal of getting out with my binoculars more often to continue learning more.  I especially enjoyed watching the gannets diving – How lucky are we to be able to observe this highly evolved skill!

Extremely honoured to have been able to attend Wild LIVE hosted by TWT CEO Craig Bennett. I love hearing people speaking so passionately about the Isle of Man – It makes me very proud to be a Manxie. I highly recommend having a look at the recording of the event on YouTube to learn more about the Aviva Temperate Rainforest project and how the Isle of Man is benefiting from it. There were also interesting discussions about farming on the IoM and food security.

Next month I plan on beginning work on the wood mouse project. This is going to involve me figuring out what needs to happen before a reintroduction would take place, how it would take place and monitoring that would need to happen once there. I am hoping that this will allow me to spend some time on the calf of man as it is such a special place. I may need to look for signs of presence and do more trapping before I even think about starting to think about introducing more to the calf. Lots of research is to be done in the mean time!

As usual, keep up to date on what I am up to by following my Instagram page @rachels_placement and any questions please don't hesitate to send over an email to rachelsmith@mwt.im