The Importance of Making Friends with the Locals…
RAB provide flood asset inspection and public safety risk assessment services for a wide range of public and private sector clients across the UK. This invariably involves fieldwork, often in remote locations, and as such our team of experts are trained to ‘expect the unexpected’!
This includes encounters with local wildlife residents who are as surprised to see us as we are to see them! We therefore decided to look back on 2024 and show you some of the creatures and critters that we met while working on various asset inspection projects. So here goes with our 2024 wildlife rogues gallery:
- Starting with some stranded sheep in February during the flood season (the farmer came and led them to safety shortly after this picture was taken).
- The worst nightmare for some of the team… coming face to face with a snake! This sunbathing snake was seen in St Neots in June (it is a grass snake, so perfectly harmless, and rapidly retreated into the shrubbery once it heard our screams!).
- Not not more snakes (those are pipes that are part of the asset), but it is the Toad(s) in the Hole seen while inspecting a borehole in Mildenhall in July.
- The Mighty Ducks as seen by Will and Charlie on Northampton Washlands in September
- Also in September… we spotted this non-native signal crayfish while inspecting an asset in Bicester. RAB’s inspectors are trained to spot and report invasive species when they encounter them. This is to help combat the proliferation of these species and prevent inspectors inadvertently spreading them as they go about their job.
- Tom and Will had a close encounter with a muddled Muntjac deer who took on an elevated supervisory role while our two engineers inspected pilings at Great Yarmouth in October.
- Josh and Tom visit a ‘seally’ busy beach in Norfolk in October when conducting PSRAs on groynes.
What will 2025 bring, we wonder. Our team have cameras at the ready and will let you know as the year progresses!
RAB deliver a wide range of asset management, public safety and engineering services for both public and private sector organisations. More information is available here on our website, or you can get in touch for an informal discussion on your specific project by email to enquiries@rabconsultants.co.uk or call our head office in Lichfield on 0330 223 6475.