Michelle Gault Email and Phone Number

Wow what an incredible few years I’ve had, full of personal growth and learning. After I finished my masters in Ecology and Conservation at UEA never did I imagine, in my dreams, that I would be able to afford to become a full time ecologist, yet here I am doing exactly that.Routes towards the job you dream of are never simple and straightforward and although mine has taken me a little while, I wouldn’t have traded the learning and people I have met and had the honour of working with along the way. From working at Aviva for 4 years and becoming exposed to a great work environment and office space with brilliant leaders, use of customer management systems, recognition for hard work, use of data to build better customer experiences, practice working to deadlines, project management and progression to the top of my area, the only move left was management in a sector I wasn’t passionate in. With Aviva’s support, I was able to work part-time for Aviva and study a full time masters at UEA. This led to an opportunity for me to also help with barbastelle tracking work, which I did alongside Aviva and writing up my dissertation (which investigated the difference in food, habitat availability and bird communities between rewilding vs agri-Env schemes). After which, with mutual respect and no hard feelings from either party I then took a role at Natural England as a farm adviser, whilst also helping out as a freelance bat surveyor for various consultancies, helping with emergence surveys. The barbastelle tracking work opened a door to be able to complete the level 1 bat license training course, which I’d thoroughly recommend to anyone. The people working at Natural England are arguably some of the nicest, most inspiring people I have worked with. Natural England are extremely supportive of their staff and I learnt an incredible amount of knowledge on all things farming, habitat management and Norfolk species conservation. Working at NE opened doors to volunteering with ARC and surveys for Northern Pool frogs, nightjar nest finding, wardening at Hoverton, gaining my DEFRA Level 2 Water Safety, FISC Certification and more. It was sad to leave NE but it was a necessary step towards the career I’ve been dreaming to do! Here I stand, as a senior ecologist, but hopefully the career progression doesn’t stop there, so watch this space and fingers crossed I can help towards some joined up thinking with real positive change between farming, development and ecology.