Sunderland Echo reporter Neil Fatkin tries out a day in the life of an employee of a wetlands centre - twice!
WWT is a charity for wetlands and wildlife.
WWT is a charity for wetlands and wildlife.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I'm here at the Washington Wildlife and Wetlands Center where I used to come as a child which is
00:04quite a while back now but it was where I really got a passion for wildlife and nature instilled
00:09in me and like many people in Washington we all grew up coming to the Wildlife Center and so I've
00:15come along here today and I'm going to chat to some of the keepers and actually getting involved
00:18with some of their tasks like cleaning the pens and preparing the food for the yachters, feeding
00:23the birds. Sunderland Echo reporter Neil Fatkin has tried out not one but two different days in
00:30the life of employees at a wetland center, WWT Washington Wetland Center, where he's got stuck
00:36in with both the keepers and the wardens to find out what goes on behind the scenes. Hi my name's
00:42Dan I'm one of the collection keepers here and I also conduct maintenance around the site so
00:48preparing any fence lines or building nest boxes and things like that. My name's Alex I'm one of
00:53the keepers I've been here since the summer of 2019 so a little while I've been volunteering
00:58for that as well. So my name is Steve Dickey and I'm the collection manager here at WWT Washington.
01:05So it's just putting a line here like that and you want to do that all the way along. There's
01:11probably realistically about 150 to 200 birds in the collection just now and it varies from
01:17swans and geese to lots of ducks and predominantly waterfowl.
01:22It's like exotic species as well from all over the world? All over the world yeah which is good
01:26because it's obviously animals that people aren't going to see regularly. What's the most popular
01:33visit when you're not saying you've got the flamingos? I'd probably say in terms of
01:37yeah popularity definitely the otters or the flamingos probably.
01:43Yeah they just like to wind people up they are like little puppies.
01:49They do just like to have fun and be with the shivers especially across the hair.
01:55What's a typical day in tail for yourself? Ah good question um yeah just keep on going.
02:03So our mornings are yeah mainly obviously yeah feeding checking on all our animals that we have
02:08making sure they're all okay. Cleaning so kind of getting the site ready for visitors
02:13so for example cleaning up poop like you see on the path just kind of make it look nice and tidy
02:19and then after all that's done for me mostly it'll kind of be a mix between kind of like
02:25maintenance work so like I say repairing anything that's broken or doing other jobs with Alex.
02:30Yeah it's a day-to-day we'll come in we'll feed all the birds make sure everyone's okay
02:34um we've got the birds and the otters we've got two birds of the duckery as well
02:38um this time of year obviously we've got lots of babies coming out.
02:41So we've got a little family we've got Mimi uh no sorry Musa, Mimi and then Buster.
02:47So Musa's the dad he's the oldest one he's 12 years old. Buster's the baby he's uh the troublemaker he's only six.
02:59Yeah that's right that's spot on yeah so uh they do filter feeding so um essentially if you look
03:04inside you can even uh film you'll see um their little bristles they kind of look a bit like a
03:08fine-tooth comb because they're really close together um and essentially yeah what they're
03:13doing is just sieving the water um so they're kind of taking in like a gulp after gulp of water kind
03:18of uh swishing their beak from side to side and pushing that water across um those bristles and
03:23then anything uh like Brian's seeing planks and algae small invertebrates will kind of get trapped
03:28in these bristles and it means if I spit the water out I know yeah swallow that too. These are Asian
03:33short-clawed otters right so they're from Southeastern Asia mainly um they're quite widespread
03:38you find them inland they don't really like being near the coast so they get fed four times a day
03:42so they generally eat like freshwater fish and stuff which is what we we give them here
03:46and this is quite a strong conservation element as well yeah we are the uh you know the UK's um
03:51biggest uh wetland uh conservation charity and so obviously a large part of what we do is um
03:58it's kind of raising that that awareness for people and to kind of see like what we do why
04:04wetlands are so important not just for us but for the animals that live there what we're doing
04:07to help conserve them and how um the public can get involved too yes we'll have a few
04:12critically endangered animals on site um some of the duckery some are out on show we're trying to
04:18sort of provide a natural sort of habitat for native species so that helps to conserve a lot
04:23of the natural species that are in this area but as well as that we do sort of have to participate
04:29in breeding programs with other zoos throughout the UK and Europe as well so things like the
04:35bears poachers and ducks that we have they are a critically endangered species so we are sort of
04:40quite key in helping to breed them to create that sort of safety net population so that if the wild
04:46population was to crash we've got animals that could be reintroduced in the future she's quite
04:51nervous and she's quite jumpy lusa is just really polite really gentle very good at his training
04:58you're very patient as well and those you got your uh steel toe cap boots on there's
05:03just in case the nibbler wears it yeah i mean of course there's a chunk of these already
05:07he's the trouble maker he just likes biting shoes he's not being aggressive he just likes laces and
05:11things and i know obviously it's mainly birds on the center but are these one of your favorite
05:17creatures to come and feed on to work with i mean the closest thing to pets are they really i mean
05:21they are lovely um they don't make good pets uh but they are just they're kind of just like little
05:29wet cats aren't they but um yeah they've got little personalities it's much easier to see the
05:34personalities in these compared to you know the ducks and the geese and stuff but that doesn't
05:38mean that they don't have it it's just it's more obvious for these guys and do they get annoyed
05:43yeah yeah so no individuals they recognize the uniform because they only start screaming and
05:47going crazy when they see dark blue sheep they're dark blue shirts we've got yeah the cygnets and
05:51then we also have the bar-haired goslings that you've seen in sets when we go to our gifu you've
05:56got two of them that's really cool because the barheads um they've been with us for about over
06:0210 years they're the parents and in that time they've they've not bred so the fact that they'll
06:06be now is is amazing um so we're really excited about that and they're doing really well uh and
06:12then we've also got a uh as of last week a white tinted um that's that's really cute really small
06:21so we've got two two barhead geese the ones inside currently when the when the first hatch
06:25they're inside for a little bit when they start to get a little bit older we'll put these pens
06:28during the day and then they stay out during the night and then eventually we'll put them
06:33next door to that big pen there where they can get a bit more of a runabout we've got about 57 here
06:39and yeah they face quite a lot of issues in the wild as well so again working with organizations
06:44in south america to protect and create uh wetland habitats for them and then also
06:48breeding them here about a third of this flock has been um uh bred born and raised here
06:55um so that's you know really really important and yeah chuffed a bit so that and we are
06:59looking to breed them um as much as you possibly can so what different types of feed here so what
07:05that's right so these two yellow buckets uh there are flamingo food um so flamingos in the wild
07:13they tend to eat stuff like brine shrimp um algae plankton so what gives them the pink color the
07:18shrimp that's right yeah so uh that's saying you are what you eat so kind of very true nothing
07:22no sense so uh all that food they get from the water um contains a protein called beta-carotene
07:27which is kind of found in kind of like you know shrimp stuff like that and if you eat enough of
07:30it um eventually you'll turn pink and these guys will take six to ten years for them to turn pink
07:35and it starts in the tail feathers you know this is all they work it's work the body and so if you
07:39look closely you may be able to see some of our youngsters because they'll still have kind of a
07:42gray patches on their head but a few more years will be nice and pretty pink but yeah really cool
07:46it's also found in carrots um but i don't recommend you try that at home because if you eat enough
07:50carrots you'll eventually turn orange um but yeah really interesting so this contains everything
07:55they would find in their food in the wild so they've still got the pink color contains that
07:58yeah just pick one box yeah that's really good for their treats
08:06yeah just like you don't eat chocolate that's enough yeah have you always worked with animals
08:11um so yeah this is a big quite a big creation to me um before this i was just working in kind
08:17of hospitality um and i've always wanted to work with animals uh it's just quite a competitive
08:23field to get into um so after uni um i was just uh volunteering in my spare time at um
08:29a animal park in sheffield so i could get the experience um but then yeah it's just took um
08:36like a while to be able to get enough experience to kind of you know stand out and so i saw this
08:40place you know it's like a really good opportunity to um yeah just professionally develop and then
08:46um yeah it's just worked out really well and you tend to live in quite um like hostile environments
08:51so these guys are perfectly evolved in habitats such as um salt lagoons uh salt marshes um
08:59yeah soda lakes basically habitats that are really disgusting quite salty quite alkaline
09:05uh because you were living like you know a harsh hostile environment like that you're
09:08going to have it to yourself pretty much because no animal you want to live there
09:12so in the wild would there be fresh water to go in the sea as well um
09:16mainly fresh water they might live near the coast but they don't really like being in the sea they're
09:20not actually very good at swimming um so if you see their little hands you'll notice they don't
09:24really have that much webbing between their fingers compared to other types of otters like
09:28the european one or the sea otter um they've got a lot more webbing so they can swim faster
09:35like you sir these guys are much more adapted to being on land which is why the pen here has got
09:41like less pond than you might expect if we're not there
09:46this island is in the center of this pond it's our kind of uh flamingo um breeding area so our
09:51volunteers uh built this um for us yeah several days and essentially it's just a stage for them
09:57to build their nests because they'll build them uh out of sand um from the ground and it comes
10:01about like this big um and then that's where the female would lay a egg and then both mum and dad
10:06will uh incubate it and look after it so that's where um they'll start building um their nests
10:12fingers crossed hopefully they tend to be kind of the the end of summer that's the hardest part of
10:16the job i know you said all the things you like and love that's the hardest part of the job so
10:22the menu is on your on the wall over there right so for breakfast you get a trout uh some smelt
10:29and something called pop sit which is not actually a fish it's the stuff
10:33calcium separator which is good for their digestive systems uh yeah it's the hardest part of the job
10:40i don't know how long do you say six what would be the life experience um so in the wild if they
10:45get to 10 11 12 that's pretty good and in captivity though they can live quite a bit longer
10:51so there's no there's no threats for them here there's no there's no danger of not being able
10:56um that's a really good question i'll probably say actually um kind of the maintenance side can
11:01be can be quite hard um because it's something that i'm kind of still relatively kind of um
11:06learning i've had a great day here at the wetland center and managed to get you know hands-on
11:10experience of getting stuck in with feeding the animals and the various tasks that the keepers do
11:14what struck me more than most is just how passionate they are about their jobs just how
11:19much they they love the animals and the birds which are in their care we call them kind of
11:22working wetlands because not only do they provide habitats for the animals that live here
11:27um but they also have benefits to us and from a well-being perspective people to come and
11:32come to these places and be in nature but also um they help us massively in terms of the economy
11:38so these wetlands can um help stop flooding and they can actually filter water out so can
11:43help with pollution all these things that kind of are going to become worse and worse you know
11:49as climate change becomes more of an issue so these working wetlands are very important because
11:52they do many things um at the same time
12:04i've come along here this morning to follow around one of the reserve wards see what their daily job
12:08entails i'm going to be getting involved in fence checking to protect from predators coming in
12:12we're going to be filling up the bird feeders we're going to be doing population counts
12:16monitoring the species i'm also going to be getting into one of the wetland areas
12:19to trim back some of the reeds so that some of the birds in the wildlife can get better access
12:24so we start at 8 30 and the grounds team come in then and we'll start on morning tasks so
12:28preparing the site for opening to the public so we sweep poo off the paths change the bins
12:33check the play area make sure it's safe and then the main one we've done today as you've seen is
12:37the fence check so we walk the perimeter fence it's a two-hour job and we check that the fence
12:42is intact no storm damage the fence itself protects the collection birds which obviously
12:47our treasure collection and tropical birds that we want to keep safe they're a massive asset
12:52and it also protects way the lake which is a massive breeding habitat for the likes of
12:55amazet and lapwing and so we can't have predators in there but we do want predators on site we just
13:00want foxes and otters on the wilder out of parts of the site outside the fence so we've divided it
13:06up that way so we can have the best of both worlds really is that basically if any predators get too
13:10close it will deter them yeah it will it'll be like just i mean a little tickle i guess is how
13:16i like to describe it and it's just to deter them from burrowing underneath the fence and coming
13:20onto the site i've been given this device here called a fence doctor which we're going to be
13:23using for our fence check so yeah okay what do we use this for and how do we use it so what we do
13:29is we hang that onto the upper wire and the lower wire of the fence and then you press the little
13:33button that says press and it tells you what the electric um fence is reading today our fence is
13:385000 volts and we ideally want it to be four to five so it's just a good way to check really that
13:44our fence is actually working and keeping the anti-predator um devices that we've got on site
13:48in good condition yeah just hook it straight on with the little metal this here yeah am i going
13:52electrocuted no you're not gonna get electrocuted hang it on and then just press yeah a little what
13:575000 volts you say four or five it'll give us a decimal just keep hold on press yeah so that
14:05what is that reading i can't see 2.2 okay so that's a bit low so as we go around we'll be
14:10looking to see if there's anything wrong with the fence so we've got in total four hides and we've
14:15just got a brand new one called the vick robbins hide and that's um a lovely almost like upturned
14:21boat hide that gives you good views of the sand martin bank i'm not too far from from the coast
14:26i'm guessing get a mix of woodland and coastal birds here that you are yeah so for example we've
14:30got the common terns and the gulls and then when we go up to hawthorn wood you'll see we've got a
14:34massive range of woodland birds as well so it's a lovely like 50 50 split between a bit of both and
14:39then occasionally we'll get um sort of more rarer things coming so we had a spoonbill coming in
14:45recently and we had some heavy rain and that was quite nice and then yeah other unusual things fly
14:50over as well so sometimes it's not just the coastal the woodland it can be some rarities too
14:55we're going to do a sightings um list so i've got a sightings list here for you to fill in all right
15:02i'll pass you over that um if you'd like to borrow some
15:07just ask so in terms of these population counts i mean pretty sounds obvious but
15:12what is the purpose is just to monitor um that the numbers now that change
15:16but you're also looking out for sort of um birds with young and that sort of thing yeah so we're
15:20keeping track of all our species how they're doing how many broods they've got which ones are nested
15:25and how many nests and it's not just birds it's plants it's fungi it's invertebrates and it all
15:30goes into our recording system which all then goes back to inform how our management plan is
15:35doing because the reserve has a management plan and all of our habitat management kind of gets
15:40reviewed in light of how we're actually doing with those species so it all kind of comes back to
15:45inform how our work's going and if we need to do anything differently so it's really important for
15:49us to know how well it's going and this then gets displayed in the admissions area so visitors can
15:54see what they're coming for and social media and the training team put it online as well so you
15:58can see what you're coming for before you visit so i've brought our scruffy collins reserve copy
16:04and guide which it just has all the birds in that you might you might see across the whole of the
16:10uk um and it's a really good one with lots of detail on where you'll find them ids and hints
16:16and differences between and closely um related species and yeah this is our kind of bible for
16:22how you identify birds so do you get the public involved in doing surveys of birds and that sort
16:26well since you've mentioned it this is a good time without i've got these um so one of the things
16:33we'll do on the fence check is we'll top up all of the spotter guides so that people can go along
16:37and tick off what they've seen and this is our san martin citizen science card so as you'll see
16:42in front of us we have got the san martin bank out there and this is a map yeah um so we've got all
16:48of the holes labeled for you so that you can mark off what you see and which birds are breeding in
16:53which nest chambers and right on the back and then we can collect those and collate it into
16:58information again to see how our san martin banks do there's six of them where the adult birds
17:03if you look at the islands there's two large white birds with bands of kind of rusty orange black and
17:08black heads and red bills and those are the adult birds so they'll be hanging out there to look over
17:13there you want to just make sure there's no there's the two there yeah there's two there
17:18so two adults obviously it's been quite a a wet spring and a fairly wet summer
17:23has that affected sort of breeding populations or some of the birds you've got in or
17:27yeah i think it has had some impact so it's obviously been quite difficult for birds to be
17:33out hunting finding food reliably when they're dealing with such torrential rain and they've
17:37obviously got vulnerable young to keep warm as well so we have seen um some birds struggling
17:44with that but i think the biggest challenge as well has been with managing the site in all of
17:50this rain we've had flooding and a lot of the management we do at this time of year it's been
17:55quite difficult to do because all of our meadows have been boggy and we can't get our machines
17:58through so it's been a challenge for wildlife as well as for us trying to help that wildlife
18:03what eats these and what eats the peanuts um all the different birds kind of love the peanuts but
18:07in particular things like the nuthatch love the peanuts so it'll be again all of the finches as
18:13well enjoying them and how many of these stations have you got around the woods where you have to
18:17put the bird feeders out um we've got two stations yeah
18:24that goes over here and i don't know what's locked in is it that's it yeah just a post at the top
18:32yeah so yeah we've got two um feeding stations so this one and one on wood and then in the winter
18:41when we do bird ringing for the willow tip project we'll have extra hanging um feeders
18:46out around site so we can put up a ride to help catch those birds and ring them so two and a bit
18:51more in the winter um is this somewhere the public can get access to and come and wander around and
18:55look what birds they can see yeah so this is the main access at the front here and it was developed
19:00in covid so that people could come and look birds without being in a hide where they were at risk of
19:05being exposed to disease so it's a nice outdoor viewing station these are squirrel proof so if
19:10they land on it the cage moves down and blocks the access and again the purpose of this cage
19:15is to stop them from gaining access it's a bit sticky so forget on your hands i've got some wipes
19:20what's in this it'll be a mix of fats seeds um yeah giving a lot of high energy so you can pop
19:28it on the ash tree or any of these like posts have little holes in or just any crevices and literally
19:32just scrape it yeah and the woodpecker goes crazy for it about 10 to 10 30 our day properly starts
19:38and that's when we get our tools out get our kit and come down to areas like this and start doing
19:42our work and we work pretty much all the way through until the end of the day at about 4 30
19:47well we stop and we do a clearance and we'll make sure that all the public are off the site and
19:50we'll lock the hide so that's kind of a day in the life of a reserve warden yeah so what we're going
19:55to be doing um now is we're going to be pulling out this this is typhus and as you can see it's
20:01just grown out and it's taken up all the view down this pond so we're going to pull this out
20:06just to create an open view because it spreads quite well and it can just take over the area
20:10we're also going to cut the reeds back and a bit of a 45 degree angle so that they can stay
20:15upright and not flop over into the pond so that we can create a nice open area and actually see
20:20the wildlife that's going in here and also create a nice area for the fish so we're just going to
20:24restore this area open it up and we've got a few perches there's some one here there's a one just
20:30in front of us that the kingfisher likes to use that i've been lost because of this overgrown
20:34vegetation we've cleared this pond behind us this pond um was getting a bit lost due to all the
20:38encroachment of the reed regrowth and also this plant here this typhus was taken over and stopping
20:45a the public from being to see from the hide into this open area for views of the likes of kingfisher
20:50or other birds like heron warblers and even occasionally otter but secondarily it makes
20:56this lovely open space which provides a bit of diversity amongst the reed beds we've got these
21:00lovely tall stands of reed for things to nest in but we've also got open pools for things to fish
21:04so we've just recreated this open pool for all the birds to use for hunting and otter as well so
21:11their diversity creates in the reed bed creates diversity for the wildlife too how important is
21:16it that we preserve these areas for our wildlife massively important so um wetlands have so many
21:22different species and we're so threatened by so many different things particularly climate change
21:26being drained for agriculture and if we don't maintain them then we're putting those species
21:31at risk so for example the willow tit which is a red listed species and has declined by about 94
21:37and washington is one of a few sites that actually has willow tits and that's because
21:43we've got wet woodland habitat so that's for example willow with um boggy ground that rots
21:49down and makes lovely dead wood posts for them to nest in if we don't maintain wetland habitats
21:54like this like that wet woodland or other areas like we've seen right now those species those
21:58willow tits are just going to continue to decline and we're going to lose even more of the biodiversity
22:02that we currently have in future my first experience uh here at washington was feeding the
22:07birds and it's quite a cold memory and a lot of people have the same initial experiences
22:11that first initial chance that children get to connect with nature is often at the likes of
22:16places like this and it's really given them and the bond with the natural environment that is
22:20setting up our future conservationists um going forward so it's essential i tried a lot of um
22:26academic work and research i just really realized that being in the lab and doing research was not
22:32for me and i didn't feel very connected to the difference i was making to the to the world in
22:36particular to the challenges that nature's facing with climate change i spent like a year or two
22:40after graduating just volunteering in parks and gardens and with um outdoor education groups and
22:46eventually applied to do the placement here and that's kind of how i really got into this it was
22:51all through volunteering and realizing how much i enjoyed being outdoors and making a practical
22:55difference with my own like hands essentially but i just love being outdoors like today we've just
23:00like slashed through this reed bed and i've got mud on my face i feel very connected to the space
23:05it's good for your well-being we've got all the birds calling and i can see the difference i've
23:09made like i can see that open we've opened this pool together and when i'm watching the heights
23:13tomorrow i'll be able to see the birds that are using this so i feel so connected to the change
23:17that i'm making here and i know that i'm making a difference and as well it's just fun to be in
23:22and to be out on your tractor to be cutting grass in the middle of nowhere and it also is just really
23:29diverse so every day is different i come in there's something new going on there's different
23:33emergencies to respond to and i never really know what i'm going to get up to so it keeps me on my
23:37toes as well i've had a fantastic day here at the wetland centre really got stuck into some of the
23:41daily tasks which the the reserve wardens here do and but in particular as well as being a great
23:46place for the public to visit i've also learned about just how important it is to protect these
23:50areas for the wildlife and to maintain these habitats for the creatures which live here