The Big Garden Birdwatch and Big Schools Birdwatch

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig doing The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig doing The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig doing The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig 

A young birder doing The Big Garden Birdwatch

The annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch is an hour snap shot survey of garden birds that people to take part in across the country.  This year, it could be done anytime over the last weekend, 24^th or 25^th January 2015.

The Big Garden Birdwatch is brilliant for lots of reasons; anyone can take part, you can do it on your own or with others and it’s really easy to do (you can just look out of a window).  It’s great to get children involved, so that they feel connected to nature. You just had to write down what birds you see.  Garden birds are not hard to identify with lots of people knowing what a Robin or Blackbird look like.  If you are still having difficulty identifying what you saw at the weekend, check out the RSPB website http://bit.ly/1dOxbQc.

Feeders in my garden
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

I made sure that I had filled all our bird feeders a couple of days before and topped them all up on the Saturday afternoon.  I was doing my Big Garden Birdwatch on Sunday morning and so also put out ground food on that morning. I also reminded my friends from school, Guides and Scouts that you don’t have to be into birds like me to do the Big Garden Birdwatch.  It is interesting for anyone to take part, especially if they have younger brothers or sisters.

Coal Tit on feeder in my garden during Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig doing The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig 

I did the Big Garden Birdwatch on Sunday morning, 25^th January 2015.  I spent the Saturday ringing Yellowhammer, so had to wait until the Sunday. It was quite a nice day, dull and cloudy but not too cold or too warm.  We live on the Mendip Hills escarpment and so the weather affects the birds that we see in our garden.  When the weather turns really cold, we get lots more birds coming to our feeders, which normally live in woods at the top of our lane. 

Everything was going well, I was watching the garden, when 2 Grey Squirrels came into the garden and onto the feeders, scaring all the birds away and eating all the food from the feeders. 

In my hour, I saw 3 Blackbirds, 5 Blue Tits, 3 Chaffinches, 1 Goldfinch, 2 Great Tits, 2 Long-tailed Tits, 1 Crow, 2 Magpies and 1 Woodpigeon and best of all a Bullfinch, which was a fabulous male, and a fantastic Marsh Tit, which is really unusual as a garden bird.

I saw the Bulfinch almost at the end of my hour and was really happy because I haven’t seen a Bullfinch in the garden for ages.  As soon has I had finished the Big Garden Birdwatch, all the birds turned up again on our feeders, which was rather infuriating!  Our neighbour’s garden has a lot of dense vegetation, is full of bushes and apples and very massive.  It seems to attract most the Blackbirds and Chaffinches, leaving ours to be relatively empty.

Long-tailed Tit in garden during The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

The squirrels never seem to go into next door’s garden but always into ours, which does not seem fair, but is probably because they are attracted to the nut feeders in our garden.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig doing The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig 

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig doing The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig doing The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

The RSPB asked people to send in selfies whilst doing The Big Garden Birdwatch, so here are mine: 

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig doing The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig 

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig doing The Big Garden Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig 

Young Birder doing The Big Schools Birdwatch

Then on Wednesday 28^th Jan 2015, I took part in the Big Schools Birdwatch during 4^th period, for 50 minutes rather than an hour.  It was organised by one of our teachers Mr Morton, which was brilliant.  We saw 23 Black-headed Gull, 1 Dunnock, 1 Robin, 2 Black Birds, 3 Great Tit, 2 Blue Tit, 2 Coal Tit, 6 Pied Wagtail, 2 Carrion Crow and a rat!  We did the bird watching from Lake View House but for the last 15 minutes walked around the school grounds.  There were six of us from Year 8 that took part plus three Year 12 girls.   Bird watching from the building worked out well and we managed to count the Black-headed Gull and see the Carrion Crow from there.  I really enjoyed doing the Big Schools Birdwatch and I think it’s great because it gets young people interested in birds.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig and Y8 from Chew Valley School 

doing The Big Schools Birdwatch

Photograph taken by and copyright Mr Morton, Chew Valley School 

Great Tit on Feeders at Chew valley School during Big Schools Birdwatch
Photograph taken by and copyright Mr Morton, Chew Valley School 

It is really interesting to see the results and compare them to our own. For example the most common bird in my garden could be really rare elsewhere or visa versa. For example, in 2014 the commonest garden bird was House Sparrow, which is rare in our garden.  Last year nearly half a million people took part in The Big Garden Birdwatch and over 7 million birds were recorded.  Hopefully this year will be even better.

The Big Garden Birdwatch is important because it helps the RSPB examine the population of bird species in the UK. For example it shows that since 1979, Song Thrushes are down 81% and Starlings are down 84%. In my area the most noticeable decrease are the House Sparrows that used to feed in our garden in winter, but sadly are now rare. Their numbers in the UK have dropped by 62%.

It’s funny to think my Dad has done it since he was 11, from when it started in 1979.

About the Author

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

Mya-Rose Craig is 12 years old and lives just outside Bristol.  She writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from Britain and around the world.  She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams as one of Bristol's most influential young people.  Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter

Wild Wonder Beyond Project - Photography Course

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT
001 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

It was the school holidays and I was going for a photography day at Portbury Wharf, close to junction 19 of the M5 and very close to where Dad used to work.  It is a lovely nature reserve which is quite new.  It was the first time I  had been there and I really enjoyed myself.

The event was organised by Avon Wildlife Trust and the photographer was Iain Greene.    AWT had a project where they would publish photographs from the reserve all the way through the year, so I sent in some of mine to represent late autumn.

Iain Green was really great at interacting with us kids and I learnt quite a bit about macro photography.   Ian also runs wildlife workshops for children and adults.  He arranges these through schools, work and other groups through his organisation called Wild Wonder Beyond Project http://www.wildwonder.co.uk/.

A Young birder's Photographs

These are a sample of my photographs from the day. Please comment with your top three photographs.

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT
002 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

003 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

004 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

005 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

006 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

007 Photograph taken by and copyright Young BIrder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

008 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

009 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

010 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

011 Photograph taken by and copyright Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig

Portbury Wharf Photography Day with AWT

012 Photograph taken by and copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

About the writer

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

Mya-Rose Craig is a 12 year old young birder, conservationist, writer and speaker.    She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world.  She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people.  Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter

Visiting The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

When I was younger, a friend, Digby Munns, who was a secondary school English teacher and a world birder suggested that I read “My family and other animals” by Gerald Durrell.  John Martin, the Avon County recorder, also recommended the book to me and so I thought I would read try the book.  It was the first of a trilogy and was a false autobiography about a ten year old Gerald’s interaction with wildlife in Corfu.  The trilogy was absolutely amazing and really inspired me to do even more with wildlife.  So, when I got the opportunity to visit the charity set up by him, it was extra special.

Gerald Durrell

The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is a charity involved in a lot of projects, trying to save critically endangered species.  They are based at Jersey Zoo, but in the summer 2014 they opened an office in Bath for their conservation science team to work from.  The office is only half an hour from our house and so, it was amazing to be able to visit and find out more about what they are doing there http://www.durrell.org/

Gerald Durrell

They are involved in an innovative project called the Durrell Index, which shows that despite the fact that the organisation is small, it may be the most effective wildlife charity around.

A Young Birder's Visit to Durrell

I went to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust office in November on a Friday afternoon straight from school.  I was met by Richard Young who is Head of Conservation Science.  He provides research and technical expertise to Durrell’s conservation programmes.

They seemed pretty pleased to see me and had prepared a video and a slide show to present to me.  The video was about saving the Madagascan Pochard which they are doing with WWT and loads of other organisations but I had thought that the project was being run by WWT on their own.  They are involved in lot and lots of conservation projects, which I didn’t realize was them.

In 2006, Madagascan Pochard was rediscovered on a Lake in Madagascar, having been thought to be extinct for 15 years.  When Durrell got to the heavily forested lake, there were only 20 Madagascan Pochard left and it was breeding season but our guide knew where a nest was.  When they got there, they found another really rare species of bird of prey which was feeding off the Madagascan Pochard.  It was like “ok no, we are going to destroy its food source but the Pochard is rarer.  They collected three clutches of eggs and they hatched 23 of them, with this captive breeding population being kept in Madagascar.

http://www.durrell.org/animals/birds/madagascar-teal/

Madagascar Pochard

I also met Jeff Dawson who is the Amphibian Programme Officer who is responsible for the overall development and coordination of Durrell’s amphibian programme and its projects.  Amphibians are the most threatened vertebrate group in the world with over 40% of all known species believed to be threatened with extinction.

 

When the Montserrat Mountain Chicken Frog was on the edge of extinction, they made a move within 10 days to carry out an emergency response.  They stabilized the situation and five years on they are part of a coordinated effort to ensure this species does not become extinct.

Another slideshow they showed me was about saving the Montserrat Mountain Chicken Frog.  They went Montserrat to survey the numbers and see how many were infected with the fungus that was killing all the frog species.  The fungus sticks to the frogs’ skin, covering their pores, clogging them up.  They were looking for the frogs in streams with small brown stones and the frogs were small and brown.  So the only people who were able to spot the frogs were the local guides.  They were sending all the skin samples back to a lab back in Britain to test and find out how many of the frogs were infected with this killer fungus.

http://www.durrell.org/animals/amphibians/mountain-chicken2/

Monserrat Mountain Chicken Frog
Copyright Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

It was really amazing that they made the time to meet with me and show me clips about some of the projects they are involved in.  Durrell is quite low key but at the same time the lead on lots of projects that I know about, but did not know about their involvement.  I really admire what they are doing, so much of which is science based. 

The Trust also run courses and hopefully when I am older I can go to some of these.  Gerald Durrell once said in 1976 in The Stationary Ark

“Thus the Trust would become a form of university…where people can get the correct training….and then take their talents back to form conservative units throughout the world”.

About the writer

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

Mya-Rose Craig is a 12 year old young birder, conservationist, writer and speaker.    She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world.  She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people.  Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter

Ringing Yellowhammer on 24 Jan 2015

On Saturday 24^th January 2015 I had to get up earlier than usual to go ringing.  Rather than the usual Chew Valley Ringing Station, we were doing an annual survey of Yellowhammer at Elm Farm, Burnett near Keynsham (between Bristol and Bath).  We had to be there are 7.30 am and so I was up at the unusually early time of 6.30 am.  It was really cold and so I was pretty unwilling to get up at first, but despite everything we did get to Elm Farm on time.  When we arrived, our friends Mike Bailey and Mark Dadds were already there.  We walked together to where we were going to be doing the ringing.  Mike Bailey, my trainer, had set up all tables and equipment.   We set up all the nets and people were arriving one by one, including Dean and Patrick.  I was really excited about ringing somewhere different and what I might ring.

The idea is that we can do a rough calculation of the yellowhammer population there, by going back to the same place at the same time each year. 

A Young Birder's Ringing Day

The habitat is very scrubby fields, with a main road nearby and a tiny patch of trees.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig ringing a Yellowhammer
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

We immediately caught some birds and I extracted from the nets a Dunnock, a Reed Bunting, a Blackbird, a Linnet and two Yellowhammer.  It was a great start and I ringed loads of Yellowhammer, which were hard to age and sex.  I also ringed the Blackbird and Linnet that I extracted and lots of Robin.  As well ringing, I processed a Robin that had been ringed last year as well as a few Yellowhammer from last year.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig ringing a Linnet
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig ringing a Linnet
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

It was very very cold and whenever I was not ringing, my hands would get frozen cold so that it was difficult to move them.  So I would go and stand in the sun, to try and warm up.

About the writer

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on Scilly
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

Mya-Rose Craig is a 12 year old young birder, conservationist, writer and speaker.    She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world.  She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people.  Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter

Birdgirl’s 10 top tips on how to be a birder

A Young Birder's Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Chew Valley Lake
Photograph taken by and copyright Oliver Edwards Photography

Last year I was interviewed by Ben Hoare, the features editor at BBC Wildlife Magazine, for an article in BBC Countryfile Magazine. I met Ben at Chew Valley Lake at the beautiful Woodford Lodge. We had an amazing time chatting about birds and anything else that came up. We were chatting so much that we ended up being there for a couple of hours. I had loads of fun, really enjoying my first proper interview! So much that I forgot all about the tape recorder.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Chew Valley Ringing Station
Photograph taken by and copyright Oliver Edwards Photography

A few weeks later, I met Oliver Edwards a photographer from Bristol, at the Chew Valley Ringing Station. Oliver took lots of photographs of me at the ringing station and around the lake, which I also really enjoyed. It did not take long for me to get over any slight shyness! He was an amazing photographer and I love having so many cool photographs of me birding and ringing.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Chew Valley Lake
Photograph taken by and copyright Oliver Edwards Photography

Interview with a Young Birder

The interview was published in the September 2014 edition of BBC Countryfile Magazine. In it I explained why I thought birds were cool and why birding is brilliant fun for children and adults to take part in. There was even a mention of my interview on the front page which was amazing. 

As well as the magazine interview, there was also an on-line article by me, where I shared my top ten tips for bird watching beginners http://bit.ly/1zhu2D8.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Chew Valley Lake
Photograph taken by and copyright Oliver Edwards Photography

About the writer

Mya-Rose Craig is a 12 year old young birder, conservationist, writer and speaker. She is based near Bristol and writes the successful Birdgirl Blog, with posts about birding and conservation from around the world. She has recently been listed with the singer songwriter George Ezra and actress Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones as one of Bristol's most influential young people. Please like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter