Making the Most of Moorlands - Work Experience

A week of work experience - Ruairi Hotson

7th - 11th November 2016

Ruairi followed Ciaran for another great week of work experience. During Ruairi's week he completed the following tasks: Filmed Waxwings and a Kestrel for the upcoming Langholm wildlife film, put up trail cameras to monitor various wildlife, built and installed a dipper nest box, sited and stocked a new wild feeding station at John's Bank, secured evidence of a satellite tagged Hen Harrier on the moor, continued to stock up the bird table and update the sightings board at Whitshiels, checked a woodland for signs of Long eared Owls, guided a local volunteer to enjoy sightings of Waxwings, Brambling and Hen Harriers and even braved the first snows of winter to check the hare feeding station, monitor raptors and even build a giant snow harrier!!

Ruairi has been a fantastic help all week displaying a great attitude and was a pleasure to work with. 

Ruairi wrote the report below following his placement:

During my work experience Rick and I done tasks like putting food out at the new bird table at Whitshiel's Cafe, laying out peanuts to attract different types of birds and squirrels at Longwood and took photographs of a type of bird called Waxwings in the co-op car park, the tall trees across from the co-op and the trees next to Border Fine Arts. We put out cameras to capture footage of different types of birds such as Black Grouse and Tawny Owl. We put up a camera to capture footage of the hares between back of Tarras and Newcastleton. In the last few days we set up our very own feeding station and put up a camera to see if anything was eating or coming nearby that area. Birds of prey that we seen during the week were Buzzards, Grouse, Pheasants, Kestrels, a tawny owl and many more  and even got to see a rare sighting of a Hen Harrier. During this week I have seen and heard amazing things and I have thoroughly enjoyed this experience, I would do it again and wouldn't mind having a job like this in the future. I would like to thank Rick for making it so fun and enjoyable and it has been a pleasure to work with him.

Many thanks to Ruairi for all his effort and hard work and we hope to see him back in Spring for some volunteering - Rick

Ruairi and the Snow Harrier!

Another fantastic Dipper box along the Tarras