Being a Wildlife Trust volunteer

Being a Wildlife Trust volunteer

Being a Wildlife Trust volunteer could change your life.  I’m serious about that. Although my work is as a wildlife cameraman I volunteer too. Last year I made several videos for the Gwent Wildlife Trust.  I have been a member of our county trust since I was a child.  In my opinion everyone involved in making wildlife television programmes should be a member of their county wildlife trust.  This short film is about one type of volunteering that you could do for your trust.  There are many things that you could do.

Making the film

I really enjoyed making the film with Vaughan Thomas.  Vaughan enjoys his time at Magor Marsh monitoring water vole and otters, and he also keeps an eye out for American mink, which are not welcome.  They don’t really belong is this country, and are only here after a group of people released them from fur farms several decades ago.  I filmed it in a reality style, just following Vaughan around while he talked about what he was doing.  One take wonder – that’s the truth.

Wildlife cameraman content

There isn’t too much wildlife content in this video – I’m saving those shots for other videos.  We see water voles on the apple monitoring platforms and some dragonflies, but that’s about it.  So far I have yet to see an otter at the Magor Marsh reserve.  People have seen them on the day before I’ve been there.  As with any type of wildlife filming it will be a matter of putting in the time.  The best place to film an otter from would be the hide itself, as you’d have a fighting chance of seeing one for a reasonable stretch of time.  It would be trickier in the reens, unless you were to spot one on a long uninterrupted stretch.

Other films

I’ll be making more wildlife films for the Gwent Wildlife Trust over the next few years.  Together we’ve already completed one about home education, and other useful educational material.  At the moment I’m editing something about the proposed M4 route too.