The first 6 weeks…

Hi, I’m Dani and I am going to be writing about our first weeks on the course prior to our trip to Kenya.

The first 6 weeks of the course have gone past in a bit of a whirl! But it has all been very exciting and very memorable.

It all began at the end of September when we had our induction at the University of Southampton, the first time that we all got to meet. The induction was brief but it was great to finally meet the rest of my class and useful to visit the university as I had never been there before. It was all a little bit daunting to begin with, particularly being a slightly more ‘mature’ student, meeting a new group of people as well as a new university which was a lot larger than the one that I’d previously attended. However I needn’t have worried as we all got on really well from that first day and I quickly got my bearings around the university with the help of the others.

The following day we had our first visit to Marwell Zoo and our induction there, which gave us a much better idea of how the course was going to work. That evening an ice-breaker had been organized for us at Marwell with staff from both the university and Marwell Wildlife. This was a brilliant way to meet a range of people and practice our networking skills. A few surprises were also thrown in, which got the year off to a fantastic start!

The remainder of that week largely comprised of further induction talks at the university including health and safety, an introduction to BSPS (the Biological Sciences Postgrad Society) and a tour of the biology building and our newly designated MRes Wildlife Conservation desk area! Our lectures began proper the following week. Our timetable is split between the university and Marwell, with two days of the week at each site. At Marwell we cover modules in: Fieldwork: before, during and after; Techniques in monitoring and surveying; and Wildlife Conservation: principles and disciplines; while at the university we cover: Quantitative Methods, and tutorials. We also joined the Conservation Journal club, which meets weekly to discuss a current journal or relevant topic, anything from how to get published to insect tasting(!) and have the opportunity to attend weekly seminars on a wide range of biology related topics.

We had some excellent and very interesting lectures during the first few weeks and I particularly enjoyed learning about population biology and management. We met Dr Zeke Davidson (Marwell’s Field Biologist, resident in Kenya), who will be looking after us during our field course to Kenya, when he visited for a couple of weeks. He gave us a number of lectures on practical techniques, including setting up camera traps to monitor Roe deer in the woodland around Marwell.

Roe deer caught by one of our camera traps

We also practiced radio tracking, where we sent Rachel off with a tracking device and attempted (unfortunately not very successfully!) to find her. While our workload isn’t too heavy we have begun undertaking a small hands-on project looking at Marwell’s sand lizard (Lacerta agilis) enclosure. Marwell have a group of sand lizards, native to the UK, which they breed from in order to release individuals at designated sites in Dorset, under the leadership and guidance of Natural England and the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) Trust. Every year the vegetation in their enclosure requires tending to once the lizards have started hibernating. This year Dr Heidi Mitchell (Joint Programme Manager, Marwell) asked if, as a group, we could take on this task after conducting some background research on the species.

We also started preparations for our imminent departure to Kenya, putting together our kit lists, getting vaccinations and malaria tablets and divvying up the equipment we need to take with us, including the very important shower tent (otherwise it could be a rather smelly 11 days!).

After all the fun we were having (don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of hard work but it was fun hard work!) we were brought back to reality with our first assignments both due in before Kenya and both for Quantitative Methods! I have to admit that this is personally my least favourite module (crucial for research though!) but statistics has always been an area that I’ve struggled with so this came as no surprise! Even so, we all managed to get through them in one piece, handing them in on Friday before jet setting off to Kenya the following Monday!

Written by Dani