Last weekend students from Biological Sciences and Coastal Ecology courses volunteered with OPAL and helped run a two-day Bioblitz at Pentillie Estate near Saltash. They helped us to engage over 300 people with wildlife and their local environment, and helped to discover Greater and Lesser Horseshoe bats, not previously known to be at the site, as well as Violet Ground Beetles, Lesser Stag Beetles and a plethora of plant, bird and invertebrate species not recorded there before.
If you would like to help with similar events then OPAL has plenty of volunteering opportunities coming up that anyone can get involved in. You can improve your identification skills and gain essential experience of field surveys and public engagement with science. It is also a great way to get to know the local area, meet wildlife professionals and get a sense of the sort of career you might enjoy.
Time commitment is flexible. Listings of current opportunities can be found here or you can email me for more info: alison.smith@plymouth.ac.uk.
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