Resident Voluntary Assistant Warden, Jonny Bull
I come from Gloucestershire, where WWT Slimbridge has been like a second home to me my whole life, as my parents took me there almost weekly since I was in a pushchair. I feel I wouldn’t be where I am now without that constant exposure to nature. By the age of 11, I was having my first inklings of twitchery; I became obsessed with seeing an overwintering Bittern, and eventually succeeded, having subjected my parents to many weekends freezing away in the hides. At the time I had obviously decided this would be the peak experience of birding and fell out with it for most of my teenage years, not picking it back up until I was about to start uni.
My time at Bangor University was my most important period for birding. I started as an incredibly inexperienced birder with a friendship group that was leagues ahead of me. I was in a part of the world with a fair bit more on offer than Gloucestershire. There was certainly a lot of pressure, but these were also the perfect conditions to really improve my knowledge. I left Wales with so many memorable experiences: I saw massive tern colonies; passage Dotterels that would walk up to you; and Twite with a backdrop of Cuckoos and Grasshopper Warbler in the Snowdonia valleys. Then there was the ever so slightly unusual day when I saw my first ever day-roosting Nightjar in the middle of a reedbed on top of a plastic heron!
Somehow I didn’t forget that I was there to get a degree and graduated in 2021 with a BSc in Zoology. Covid had shaped a lot of my post-uni life, mostly due to the wait times with getting driving lessons. It took me 3 years from the first call to finally getting my licence, so I was pretty stuck in one place for a while!
Before starting at SBBOT, I was splitting my time between a retail job and volunteering at Slimbridge, where I had been working as a visitor engager since 2019. Then, in 2022, I started joining the practical team work parties, helping with habitat management.
It should go without saying that I am very, very excited about my time here. I’d never been to Kent, never been to a Bird Observatory and I’d never had a role like this before, so I’ve got a lot to learn. I’m hoping to stand back from twitching and really try and find my own birds, Bee-eater and Wryneck would be dreams come true, but I’ll take anything really!
Outside of the bird life, I’m looking forward to expanding my surveying skill set - especially so that I’m ready when the time comes for dragonfly and pollinator surveys. I’ve been really getting into dragonflies and have done pretty well on the west coast; my life list sits at 26 currently, but I cannot wait for what's to come this summer! I haven’t spent a great deal of time mothing before now and a lot of the rare species are lost on me - the one I want to see most is Garden Tiger!
My first week spent exploring the recording area, learning all the sites and meeting so many new people has been great. A big thank you to Steffan and all the volunteers for making me so welcome here, I am really looking forward to what's in store this year!
After my internship at Sandwich, I broadened my interest in nature to include a variety of different groups including orchids, butterflies, dragonflies and chiefly moths, recording several interesting species of the latter for Gloucestershire as well as attempting to see as many species of all the others as possible. I’m extremely pleased to be back working at Sandwich Bay and observing the huge diversity of wildlife helping to contribute good sightings of my own as well as project my passion in nature into educating and inspiring people of all ages through various formats. I very much look forward to helping with moth-trapping, surveying, ringing and so much more in my tenure, maybe I can finally catch up with a Honey Buzzard or Pallas’s Warbler. It’s going to be a pleasure meeting you all!