A Day in the Life of Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig...

The only bad thing about the day was that I had to get up ridiculously early. Who gets up at 6 o’clock on a Saturday morning? Though to be honest, I wasn’t as tired as I was the weekend before when I was forced awake at 7 o’clock. I didn’t even fall asleep on the way to ringing this time. When we got there, Mike Bailey, whose house we were ringing at that day instead of the ringing station, had already put the nets up which was really nice of him. We waited for a while before we went out, but when we checked the nets I suspect my grin overlapped the edges of my face, to say it plainly, there were a lot of birds!

We slowly and steadily worked through the masses of birds we had caught. While Mike was the scribe, Dad did the ringing and I was the one that let them go. One of the things I learnt was that Goldfinches are really hard to age and sex, you have to peer at their wings in dim light and examine their heads as they blink innocently, as if they have no idea how annoying they are. 

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with a Redwing at Chew Valley Ringing Station, January 2014
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with a Redwing at 
Chew Valley Ringing Station, January 2014
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

By the time we had finished dealing with the first round, half an hour had passed and it was time for round two. Amazingly, somehow, we had caught even more birds! By this time Dad and Mike had decided it was time for me to play scribe, deciding to ignore my warnings of messy, illegible handwriting. Someone who has never had to write the correct things in rows and columns while having different things shouted at them and people sometimes missing things out, can have no idea how hard it is. Also certain people (Dad *nudge*) mumble incorrect things when they’re trying to figure out what it really is, probably for the main purpose of frustrating the scribe e.g. muttering ‘6-male’ when actually they mean ‘4-female’. 

People who have never held a garden bird probably imagine that their small, dainty bills can’t hurt at all, even if they did bite/peck/try to pull your finger off. Well, I feel it is my duty to tell you that this is false information and that I have no idea where this lie hatched from. Blue Tits and Great Tits are the worst, they have a bad habit of finding the tender bits on your fingers and are also extremely aggressive for a bird of their size. Or a bird of any size actually. (On Birdgirl’s sliding scale of bird aggressiveness levels they get 11/10). I bite my nails so my fingers are always quite soft and sore, making them the perfect target for the little monsters. Sometime birds are so intent on biting you that they don’t notice when you let them go for several seconds. A perfect example of a Great Tit’s violent and intelligent personality was when I let one go; just as it was about to fly away, it turned around and gave me a good long bite before gliding smugly away.

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with a baby Blue Tit 
at Chew Valley Ringing, May 2014
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

Anyway, back to the subject. By only the third round we were exhausted, Mike and Dad were probably about to collapse from lack of caffeine, even if they didn’t show any outward signs. I was nearly glad when Mum came to pick me up to take me to a birding workshop for Young Wardens at Avalon Marshes Centre on the Somerset Levels.

In typical Mum style, we were late. I knew absolutely no-one and (though my friends and family deny it) I can be extremely shy. The workshop was led by Stephen Moss, who I suspect has been to our house to visit a friend housesitting, that or one of his books in our house was mysteriously signed by the ghost of a Dodo. First we did bird calls and songs (S.M. must be a mind reader because they are my Achilles heel).  He helped us by showing clips from ‘Birding with Bill Oddie’, explaining it was basically the predecessor to ‘Springwatch’. S.M. tried to describe Bill, by saying that if David Attenborough was a concert pianist then Bill Oddie was a jazz musician. David goes along with the script, does everything perfectly and thousands of people watch him, while Bill kinda makes it up as he goes along, sometimes making funny mistakes. I could never choose between the two, they’re both awesome.

 

Stephen Moss

After that we went on a walk, with S.M. pointing out birds and wildlife of interest. Bill Urwin came along as well and pointed out interesting fungi and beetles. As we walked, we watched and listened out for any wildlife. At one point we heard a Great-Spotted Woodpecker drumming and spent ages trying to work out where it was, before realising it was just on the back of a tree. As everyone strolled along, they chatted about everything from world birding to the fungi Bill had just shown them. We had lunch in a hide whilst watching the water for birds. We were lucky enough to spot Great-Crested Grebes starting to dance their dance before drifting off into the reeds.  We also we managed to get our bins onto a kingfisher as it whizzed away.  Just as we were finishing our lunch, another one flew past, perching briefly before flying away to find food.

On the way back, Bill and S.M. picked up a Bittern booming over our over-loud chatting. It was lovely to hear after listening to the less distinctive and more confusing warbler calls.

When we all got back to the centre, S.M. decided that we should do a quiz with 10 bird calls. Before I tell you my score, remember:

a) Bird calls are my Achilles heel;

b) S.M. actually said after the first 3, that they weren’t the greatest recordings.

So my score was… *drum roll*

Actually, I’ve decided not to tell 

So anyway, after that we watched more clips from ‘Birding with Bill Oddie’.  My favourite clip was where Bill was looking for a Corncrake.  I liked it so much that I’m putting the link below (but skip to the last bit at 2 minutes 50 seconds):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007zl77

From Birding with Bill Oddie

After that it was time to go home and Mum and S.M. had a nice long chat in a grannyish kind of way (yes she is a granny). When Mum and I got home she was slightly concerned that Dad wasn’t home yet.  It turned out that there had been so many birds whilst ringing at Mike’s house that he hadn’t left until late afternoon!

I didn’t do any more birdy stuff, but in the evening I did go to see the school play ‘Much ado about nothing’.  It was really funny but they talked about cows, bulls and horns too much for my liking.  (I know it has nothing to do with birds, but figured you’d want a full account of my day).  Because of the play, I went to bed later than usual.  The next morning, I had to get up ridiculously early.  Who gets up at 3 o’clock on a Sunday morning?  Even if it is to twitch a Chinese Pond Heron…

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with a teal at Chew Valley 
Ringing Station, with a Teal, September 2011
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with a Long-tailed Tit at 
Chew Valley Ringing Station, October 2011
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig