My Volunteering Story - David Shearan

Before I started taking an interest in the lepidoptera world, I had volunteered as Treasurer for a local Scouts group, Captain of my Golf Club in the Isle of Man, member of church PCCs, councillor on the local Parish Council, member of a Road Safety group and website developer for various groups, to name but a few.

A combination of my background in IT and my love of butterflies has led to my most recent volunteering roles. My wife and I have been visiting Corfu to see and record butterflies there since 2019 and, in 2022, we met Dr Dan Danahar who was the Executive Director of Corfu Butterfly Conservation (CBC). The following year I talked to him about taking over their website and, since July 2023, I have continued to maintain and develop the CBC website (recently updated to reflect the organisations expansion to become Ionian Butterfly Conservation).

More recently, I met Mike Williams while volunteering at a work party and at other events. I told him then about my website work for CBC and he stored that information away. When the West Midlands Butterfly and Moth Society was formed, Mike got in touch and I happily took on the job of building and onwardly developing the website. An AGM took place shortly afterwards and I volunteered to attend (imagine my wife’s horror!) just so that I could present the website and my future plans for it. I had specifically said my role would be as the webmaster and not as a committee member but, somehow, by the end of the meeting I was the latest addition to the committee.

 A team of volunteers has been walking a transect at the Cliffe since 2021, regularly recording around twenty butterfly species: the site is a lowland heath on a sandstone ridge, with areas of heather, grass, scrub and bracken; nectar sources are limited but include heather, gorse, bramble, honeysuckle and bilberry. 

Away from the website world, Lesley and I have been involved in local conservation work and butterfly monitoring. We are part of the survey team for a nearby butterfly transect on the Cliffe, which is a lowland heath in Ruyton XI Towns where we are involved in practical conservation tasks. We have also been involved in creating and maintaining a local community woodland called the Spinney – it’s a real passion for us, doing everything we can there to make the site wildlife-friendly and accessible to people.

 The Spinney, about 1.5 acres next to the River Perry in North Shropshire, was planted in November 2018 with a mix of native trees and hedges; we've recorded 18 butterfly species (and around 75 moth species with help from the Shropshire Moth Group). 

We both retired in 2017. At times my volunteering roles seem to take as much time as work ever did, although they give me far greater pleasure.

On a final note, if anyone wants me to volunteer for anything else, the answer is a big NO… but never say never.