30 Days Wild - Volunteer for Nature

As well as 30 Days Wild for the whole of June, this week is Volunteers Week here in the UK. If you have the free time to take part, volunteering is a great way to help nature, enjoy the great outdoors and learn more at the same time!

As many readers of this blog will know, I volunteer each week with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust, helping to look after part of the river. In fact that was what I was doing this morning, in the pouring rain! Just to give an idea of how wet it was, here is the burn that runs into the river at about 8.30 this morning

and here it is at about 10am, with definitely more water running through it.

We've had an exceptionally dry Spring so we need the rain but it has been raining very heavily a lot over the past few days and is set to continue....

One of my main volunteer tasks is to pick litter, I've been provided with a litter picker and I use an old pair of gardening gloves!

I also record the wildlife I see and am contributing to a survey of all the plants and fungi along the river. I've met lots of interesting people (and dogs!) while doing this work and it's a great way to spend time in a lovely woodland and watch it change through the seasons.

I also volunteer with the Woodland Trust as a 'Super Campaigner' (the trust's term, not mine!) which means I use social media to help the trust spread the word about it's campaigns. You may have read some of my blog posts on their campaigns. I recently gave a talk about my volunteering role at the Edinburgh Woodland Trust Volunteer Gathering (which took place at the Water of Leith Visitor Centre) and then lead a guided walk along the river! I was then interviewed for a short video that the trust made for Volunteers Week, you can watch the video here.

If you're interested in volunteering with the Woodland Trust you can find out more here and if you're interested in volunteering with Water of Leith Conservation Trust you can find out more here.