The season has started at the Scottish Dolphin Centre
Hello everyone! I guess it’s about time this year’s residential volunteers at the Scottish Dolphin Centre made an appearance in the blog section. My name is Carolin and I am the Guide and Events volunteer for the 2015 season. Lucky for me, the original candidate for this position cancelled and I got the opportunity to jump in. So, 6 weeks ago, I made my way up to Scotland from Munich (Germany), not sure what to expect, and arrived in Spey Bay to find a house full of lovely people waiting for me to join the team. Although I have been cold most of the time, life and work up here have been a great adventure so far and I expect it to get even more exciting as the season moves on. We have two brilliant ladies as this year’s Guide and Education volunteers, Catherine and Holly, with whom I will be working together for some educational events in the next couple of months. After extensive training during the first few weeks, Catherine and I were let loose on the public on Easter Sunday. So we headed off on our first unsupervised adventure to the Roseisle Forest for the Easter Eggstravaganza Festival and had a great time promoting WDC’s work while talking to lots of people about whales and dolphins and, of course, about the Scottish Dolphin Centre.
It was a lovely day with a cloudless sky, so the festival was a great success. Afterwards, we decided to stop by at Burghead to try and get a glimpse of our first dolphins. And sure enough, I spotted something at the eastern horizon. We waited patiently for over half an hour, following the animals’ approach with our binoculars, and got rewarded with a very close view of our first Bottlenose dolphins! Later that evening, after an amazing sunset, we were able to observe bats near the cottage and masses of geese traveling over Spey Bay. So all in all, Easter Sunday was a very successful and memorable day.
Since then, we have got into the shop and tour routine and even got our first treat of dolphins in Spey Bay last week with several follow up appearances over the past few days. Those are very special moments for us girls, as we don’t get around shore-watching as much as our Guide and Conservation volunteers Andrew and Matthew. These guys got to travel around quite a bit already and are not shy to boast about all the great sightings they have had. For my part, I have been busy preparing for events coming up the next few months and have been helping with preparations for our REALLY WILD FESTIVAL on 4th of May. We had a great time out leafletting in the brightest sunshine, almost getting sunburned, and will continue with our efforts to spread the word about our big event over the coming weeks. All in all, Scotland’s been treating me kindly and I am very glad I made the decision to come here!
