My First Year of Blogging

It is now a year since I posted my first blog.  When I started out, as a young birder, I didn’t really know what I was going to blog about exactly. I always knew that it wasn’t going to be focused on patch birding.  There were lots of people already doing that including about Chew Valley Lake, my local patch.  I want to make a difference by writing about the things that I am passionate about.

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

Some people must like what I am writing, as in it’s first year there have been 320,000 views with 55 blog posts.

It’s interesting for me to see how my posts have changed over the last few months.  I didn’t know that I would be spending so much time writing about the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Project or that an oil spill would devastate the Sundarbans in Bangladesh.

Sundarbans oil spill, Bangladesh

My first blog post was called “Born to Bird” http://bit.ly/18BUvAH and this is an extract:

“I’m Birdgirl: I’m seriously into nature, but especially birds. I went on my first twitch when I was nine days old to the Isles of Scilly for a Lesser Kestrel.  (Yes Dad, I know I can’t count it).  My dad’s a birder and my mum’s a twitcher/OCD world birder.  My fourth word was ‘birdie’ whilst pointing at a Black Lark on Anglesey.  (Yes mum I know I can’t count it, still too young). Basically, my life revolves around birds (apart from ballet, tap, modern, piano, guitar, choir, drama, Spanish, Guides and Scouts that is!).

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with big sis Ayesha Ahmed-Mendoza and Chris Craig
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig

I love birding, especially in my garden. I’m into ringing, and twitching is a habit I can’t seem to shake off, but my heart lies with world birding. My obsession started when Mum and Dad took me on my first South American trip, to Ecuador.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig in Ecuador
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig

The only time I’ve ever done a year list was in 2009. The BBC decided to do a program about birders and begged us to be in it.  But then they decided to give it a “funny” title (at the expense of the people in it) which was ‘Twitchers: A Very British Obsession’. Here’s a link to the Birdgirl cut, in case you don’t believe me, http://bit.ly/1CeMLAL

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig in 2009
Photograph taken by and copyright BBC

This blog is basically for me to tell you a bit about myself, what I’m up to, to say what I think about conservation issues and to moan about what humans are doing to the earth.

It’s really sad about what people are doing to our planet (the only one we have) and as well as being incredibly depressing, is also very stupid.  I mean, what happens when we run out of stuff, e.g. Oxygen? Also tons of birds (yes, I did have to drag them in) are dying out. When I’m older I want to try and help change things.

In 2013 I went to Queensland Australia, where I saw my 3000^th bird at the beginning of the trip, a Regent Bowerbird.”

Regent Bowerbird, Lamington NP, Queensland, Australia
Photograph taken by and copyright 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