2017 in a nutshell
2017 went by in a flash for us here at Seasons Ecology and we have enjoyed taking some time to look back and reflect on what we have achieved!
Both our Devon and Bath offices took on new premises with our Bath office also appointing Moira Allwood as our Office Manager! After almost two years of setting up and successfully implementing our credit control Sophie Hayward has passed over her role to Moira so that she can take time to focus on her personal training passion. Sophie may return in the future, but we’d like to thank her and wish her luck with her new venture!
Ali and Charlotte were deservedly promoted to Ecological Consultants and both remain integral members of our team supporting the Partners whilst also helping with the mentoring of our seasonal staff. We have had a great team of seasonal surveyors and would like to thank Aby, Lily and Maisie for all their efforts esp the late nights and early mornings! Hopefully the experience they have gained with us over the 2017 season will help them in securing permanent employment in the ecology sector, but if not then perhaps they will be back in 2018!
Hannah, Ali, Charlotte and Aby all successfully obtained their Natural England dormouse Class 1 licences. A big thank you to everyone who has helped with our training, specifically Janine Bright, Conrad Barrowclough, Joe Middleton and James Maben and to the dormice at Cross Land for being so prolific! This broadens the Class licences that the team hold (bat Class 1 and Class 2 and great crested newt Class 1). In addition to extending our Class licences the team has secured 16 protected species mitigation licences for various schemes across the UK in respect to a range of bat species, dormice, badger and great crested newts. Seasons Ecology is working on a nationally important site, supporting 19% of the UK breeding population of greater horseshoe bats, which has kept us really busy with bat surveys across the entire summer, not to mention the endless hours of bat call analysis….
Despite an increase in project work we have also been delighted to be able to support/run a few local community projects/events on a voluntary basis including on-going monitoring of dormouse nest boxes at Cross Land, a bat walk for the villagers of Holywell Lake, advising on bat roost enhancement opportunities and subsequent monitoring at RAF Culmhead, providing pond management advice for Milverton Community Primary School, and supporting local charitable events including Norton and Rode Schools Band in a Barn, with donations going to local charities such as Julian House.
We even squeezed in a very enjoyable team training day looking at grasses, sedges and rushes with Dom Price of The Species Recovery Trust.
We are looking forward to 2018 and the developments it will bring!
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