2023 Awards Winner’s Spotlight: Promising Professional

Lucy Pocock

Ths award was sponsored by:

Lucy has led on project design, delivery, technical input and management of surveys teams for a range of projects. These include: M60 Simister Island baseline Terrestrial and Aquatic Invertebrate Survey,; M6 Jct 33 Baseline Aquatic Invertebrate surveys, East Anglia Hub (Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project) Terrestrial and Aquatic Invertebrate surveys and Swinden Quarry, Aquatic Invertebrate surveys for water quality monitoring.

Lucy has developed Bowland Ecology’s in-house entomological capability in both terrestrial and aquatic ecology survey and assessment. She has taken it upon herself to develop her technical skills, building on her personal passion for invertebrates, through achieving a distinction in her MSc in Entomology at Harper Adams University. Lucy continued to work full-time while undertaking her MSc, committing to studying at weekends and during annual leave. Lucy partnered with The National Trust for her dissertation, which focussed on invertebrate diversity and availability for nesting Whinchats on the Long Mynd, Shropshire. Her study helped to inform effective evidence-based habitat management practices for heathland habitats, to benefit Whinchat prey levels. She also achieved 96% and passed the FBA Invertebrate Identification for Biotic Assessment, an exacting examination that accredits Lucy’s skills and allows her to provide QA input to aquatic invertebrate identification. This is above the expected grade of her appointment.

Lucy’s ability to build rapport with a wide range of professionals has led to clients contacting her directly for follow up projects, thus winning the Company new work– for example, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council is now a regular client for whom she conducts a range of surveys. She has proven herself to be a team player, helping out with general tasks but also able to mentor colleagues with more specialist identification of insects/invertebrates. Other team members also feel comfortable approaching Lucy for advice and help on their projects, whether that be physically attending surveys/sites or for certain general technical advice.

Lucy’s achievements are more remarkable given that she did not take a traditional route into ecology. After leaving school she worked in retail for 8 years before discovering a passion for wildlife herself. She is committed to furthering this passion to provide a positive impact for wildlife through her work and in her spare time. For example, she continues to provide habitat management advice on a voluntary basis as part of the NT Whinchat Project Group.

We will be posting further information on each of the 2023 Awards Winners over on our blog.