Introducing Amelia Horne, Butterfly Conservation volunteer, who gives an overview of her experience working towards her Silver Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
For my Bronze award, I ran a dance club – but I was interested in something different for Silver. I enjoy nature and this seemed a good fit. Adult volunteers Karen and David came to talk to us about what to expect. The help they needed was actually quite different from what I thought would be involved. When I thought butterflies – I didn’t think ‘gardening’ (habitat maintenance), but it sounded worthwhile to be involved in.
I have come across the charity in the past through events such as the Nature Festival in Stroud and have had butterfly spotting sheets when at Slimbridge and Welsh Wetlands – so the volunteering offered a look ‘behind the scenes’.
We signed up for about five ‘work parties’ starting in January at nature reserves around Gloucestershire including Rough Bank and Prestbury Hill. They generally took place at the weekend, but also a few ran during the school holidays. We generally participated for a morning or afternoon at each one. As it was winter we did have issues with some of the work parties being cancelled due to the weather conditions but they were re-arranged quite quickly.
We were kitted up in our gardening gloves and old clothes and after a health and safety briefing we got involved in activities such as pruning, raking the ground for seeding, gorse clearing, clearing away dry grass and weeds and I even made a log habitat with Serena. The activity was slightly different at each reserve.
Karen and David were very knowledgeable about the butterflies and taught us about them during each volunteering session. We learnt about the butterflies that were on each site, about their habitat, the differences between male and female butterfly markings (I hadn’t really thought about that before) and how the different butterflies survive.
We were surprised to hear that they wanted to keep the ant hills at Rough Bank as the ants help the butterflies by burying the Adonis Blue chrysalises in the ant nest and then looking after them. The other volunteers were really friendly also and brought cake and cookies!
I really enjoyed the volunteering experience. It was a shame that weather conditions and then Covid 19 derailed some of the planned activities.
I would recommend working with Butterfly Conservation to other teenagers looking for volunteering opportunities for their DofE. If you like working outside and nature, this is a great option and you can contribute to butterfly and moth habitat maintenance and learn more about them in the process.
Butterfly Conservation Gloucestershire Branch is not currently offering Duke of Edinburgh's Silver Award placements due to Covid 19. This will be reviewed in September 2021. In the meantime, anyone interested in this scheme or future placements are invited to contact Karen and David Nicholls on @email