Trust: What we do

By Linda Anderson

I have been part of the Spedan Natural Trust for just over a year, I'm the co-ordinator. I enjoy nature, being in nature, it's my recharge place and I like to be useful, so with my skills not lying in the world of natural sciences but more from a process and systems background the co-ordinator role seemed like a great way to be involved and help support the Spedan Natural Trust.

Our meetings are incredibly interesting, partly as it has been such a new world for me to find out more about. The depth and breadth of knowledge across our Trustees is impressive along with the passion and enthusiasm of our Spedan Trust Friends makes our meetings and catch ups a pleasure. It's so fascinating to hear the detail that is discussed around monitoring, research and development, and our reserves. To be honest sometimes I do have to go away and google certain words, as it's been a long time since I did any biology, but this makes it all the more rewarding as I'm picking up new words and understanding more.

Visiting the reserves is always a highlight, this puts our meetings into much more context. The reserves are amazing places, and I feel privileged that I have been able to visit and take in just how diverse and beautiful they are.

Pictures from Swan Island Reserve

Since I've been part of the Spedan Trust I do feel that I have been more aware of the natural world. A really simple but really rewarding thing this year that I've loved is my bees. In particular in the seriously hot spells we had this summer I was filling up a large terracotta saucer with water daily, and perched along the edge I had at least 10 bees with many more at the ready to land, I'm sure they saw me coming out of the back door with their water, I could fill it up while they stayed there, it made me smile. Such a simple thing to do, but so rewarding. I even made sure when we were away that a neighbour made sure my bees water dish was kept full! (wish I'd taken a video of them, but I was too caught up in the moment each day).