Caroline Mead of the RSPB: ‘If people don’t love something, they won’t protect it’
Caroline Mead works for the RSPB and is based at the David Attenborough Building in Cambridge.
She has noticed some interesting developments in Cambridgeshire’s bird population – and has been involved in a fascinating musical project.
“I’m the managing copywriter, so I manage a team of writers who write for the RSPB,” explains Caroline, who is also a talented singer and musician.
She is a member of the St Augustine Singers, a choir founded in 2012 and based at St Augustine’s Church on Richmond Road, Cambridge.
“And when I say ‘write for the RSPB’, basically if it involves words, it’s likely that my team are involved in some way or other.
“That could be anything from copy on the website, it could be supporter emails, it could be the big display boards at a nature reserve to say what you might see on a particular day, or the history of the site – things like that.
“We’re also involved in coming up with ideas for creative projects.
“At the Restore Nature Now march in London last year, the RSPB contingent carried a huge avocet puppet, which was the width of the road! My team came up with that idea.”
Caroline’s team consists of two at the present time and there are two other vacant roles, meaning she manages a team of four.
“In an interesting kind of way, it’s people’s dream job,” she says. “We’ve got a junior role at the moment in the team and we’ve already had over 1,000 applications – and it doesn’t close for another three days!
“I think it’s the kind of thing that lots of people, especially if they’re just leaving university, really want to do, and I think it’s because it’s combining creativity with something that’s actually helping the natural environment.
“I think a lot of people really like that combination of different skills.”
Caroline was born and raised in Cambridge, attending Chesterton Community College and Hills Road Sixth Form. She started working for the RSPB 13 years ago.
“What’s nice is you get involved in loads of different projects,” she notes, “and I think one of my favourites was in 2019, which was a big marketing campaign to try and get a single of pure birdsong, titled Let Nature Sing, to number one.
“It unfortunately didn’t make it to number one, but mid-week it was tracking very nicely with Taylor Swift! Obviously she ended up selling more…
“It got to number 18, but it got sampled by a record producer; they produced a dance version of it, which was good fun, and it was played on Radio 1.
“That was a really fun one to get involved in.”
Caroline works for the RSPB “as a whole, rather than Cambridge specifically”. But she certainly advocates visiting our local reserves, like RSPB Fen Drayton Lakes.
“In lockdown, I heard a cuckoo there, and I’d never heard a cuckoo in my life before,” she says.
Elaborating on some of her other memorable experiences during her time at the RSPB, she adds: “I spent a week volunteering at Abernethy Forest in the Highlands of Scotland, part of a 24-hour watch over an osprey nest.
“And in 2018, I spent a four-week sabbatical on Rathlin Island, off the coast of Northern Ireland, showing tourists seabirds such as puffins from a watch point.
“Probably my most amazing highlight was seeing a turtle dove in Histon a few years ago.
“I knew the call through recordings – it sounds rather like a purr – but there I suddenly came across it, in a completely normal housing estate.
“Their numbers have dropped dramatically in recent years – though they’re starting to recover – so it was incredible to see.”
Caroline continues: “The most recent thing that I wrote for the website was the top six birds to see in May [rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/birds-of-the-month/may-birds-of-the-month] – and they’re all migratory birds.
“It’s things like swifts and swallows – I’ve seen a lot of swifts in Cambridge – and they’re quite a good sign that spring is coming.”
Caroline was recently up at Leighton Moss nature reserve in Lancashire.
“I heard bitterns booming, which I never had before,” she recalls, “but I mentioned this to someone who was working locally and he was like, ‘You can hear them at Fen Drayton Lakes, why did you go to Leighton Moss?’
“I’ve never heard them at Fen Drayton Lakes but apparently they’re quite common there. You probably won’t ever see one because they live in reed beds and are very camouflaged, but you hear them.
“The male makes this incredible sound; it’s basically like a massive loud boom. You can hear it from a mile away because it just echoes and resonates.
“It’s a really odd but very atmospheric noise, and they’re counted by the number of male bitterns you can hear booming. The females don’t boom.
“In 1995 there were only 11 in the whole of the UK, but now it’s in the 200s because the RSPB set about restoring wetland and reed beds to create just the right conditions for them to feed.
“But I’d never actually heard one until I went to Leighton Moss. It is an unbelievable sound.”
Caroline, who is also a massage therapist at Neal’s Yard Remedies on Rose Crescent, reveals that she had been near her home in Arbury at lunchtime on the day we spoke and that she had seen a red kite fly over.
“You never used to see red kites in this area at all, so that’s brilliant,” she says.
“Obviously some species aren’t doing very well at all, but I think it’s about celebrating what is there.
“And I always think that you have to start from love and enjoyment and enthusiasm – because if people don’t love something, they’re not going to protect it.
“So if everyone could hear a blackbird in the morning and think, ‘What a beautiful sound’, then that might lead to wanting to take positive action to look after them.”
Caroline, whose grandfather was a keen birdwatcher, concludes: “The David Attenborough Building is great because it has people working in loads of different conservation organisations which are based there.”
The full list of organisations with a presence in the building are the University of Cambridge, BirdLife International, the British Trust for Ornithology, Fauna & Flora, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the RSPB, the Tropical Biology Association, UNEP-WCMC (World Conservation Monitoring Centre), and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
“It feels like you’re really part of a movement of people who are always trying to do good for the environment in one place,” says Caroline.
The RSPB carries out conservation on a large scale, protecting and restoring habitats, and striving to save species from extinction.
It says its work is driven by “science and evidence” and the charity is rooted in five areas: species, science, place, policy and people. It has 1.2 million members.
Visit rspb.org.uk.
