‘I feel motherly towards them’: the nature reserve manager sharing her office with a wasp nest

The intricate wasp nest on Eilish Rothney’s bookcase of files for the Trinity Broads nature reserve. Photograph: Eilish Rothney

When wasps began streaming through a rusted gap in her office door one June morning, Eilish Rothney’s first instinct was the same most people would have: get rid of them. The reserve manager for the Trinity Broads, part of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, had discovered a wasp colony taking up residence in her office, a converted shipping container.

“They just built the nest inside my door,” she says. “My first thought was: ‘Oh no, I have to get rid of that now.’ But then I realised: ‘Wait, why? Why do I have to do that?’”