A new view to working outdoors

During my time at Kilchoan I took part in all different types of estate work by helping the garden and estates team with their day-to-day jobs. I worked with the estate team doing a range of different activities such as strimming paths in the plantations, making it more accessible to the public, removed Sitka spruce to allow planted trees to grow and removed vole guards from trees that have outgrown them. I also did some marine activities such as oyster grading and seaweed line removal. I also had the opportunity to go out and take part in biological recording. During that time, I learnt about moth trapping, clearwing moth surveys and a bit about caring for Scottish black bees, among other things. When working with the garden team I helped with several activities such as weeding in the flower beds, tree planting, as well as working in the poly tunnels and cutting lawns in the arboretum and the main meadow beside Kilchoan House. Overall, I really enjoyed my time at Kilchoan, my favourite thing that I got up to whilst there was checking the creel pots, were we caught several different things like Lobsters, Langoustines and an Octopus, which I had to pick up and return to the sea. I fully enjoyed my time working and learning at Kilchoan, the team were amazing and kept me fully engaged every day with a variety of tasks, this has given me new skills that I will never forget, because of this I would like to say a HUGE Thank you to the whole of the Kilchoan team for having me.