Mya-Rose Birdigirl Craig Interview on ITV West News age 11 year old

When I was 11 years old, I saw my 3000th bird species in the world. It was a stunning Regent Bowerbird which I saw on my second day in Queensland, Australia at Lamington National Park in July 2013.

I had spent 6 months in South America in 2012 on during the last few days in Peru, our guide Gunnar desperately tried to find me the last few bird species to get me to 3000, but it just wasnt to be.

In January 2014, a blog appeared about the birds I had seen. This led to some articles locally and in the national press.

http://www.bathmercury.com/chew-valley-school-pupil-hits-3000-twitches/

That in turn led to an invite on ITV local news, to be interviewed about my birding. At the time, I felt really calm and not nervous at all. Looking back now, it is incredible how calm I appear. We had arrived really late,  just mum as usual. She has throught it was a recorded interview for the following evening and told me that if I went wrong, I should just say could I do that again. Apparaently, as soon as we were ushered into the studio, mum realised it was a live interview but did not have the opportunity to tell me. That might have been the reason why I was so relaxed on live TV!

About the Author

Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig in Antarctica
Photograph copyright Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Mya-Rose Craig is a 15-year-old young British Bangladeshi birder, naturalist, conservationist, environmentalist, activist, 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 loved seeing Mountain Gorillas in East Africa and Penguins in Antarctica over Christmas 2015, her 7th continent. She is looking forward to visiting Guatamala, Tanzania, Kenya and Madagasca birding in 2018 and hopes to see her 5000th bird species in the world.

Mya-Rose was a Bristol European Green Capital Ambassador along with Kevin McCloud, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Tony Juniper, Simon King, Miranda Krestovnikoff and Shaun the Sheep! See the full list of Bristol Ambassadors. She has also 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. She is an Ambassador for World Shorebirds Day, See It Her Way and a Charter Champion for The Charter for Woods, Trees and People. She has given over 50 talks, speaking at conferences such as being on a panel with George Monbiot and Caroline Lucas on Sustainability and the Future of Cities. She has also appeared on TV an dis particularly proud of being in Silent Roars, a short film whihc was part of Listen to Britain 2017 https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-silent-roars-2017-online. She organised a conference, Race Equality in Nature, in June 2016 aiming to increase the ethnic diversity in nature and plans to run her fifth Camp Avalon camp in 2018. She has also set up Black2Nature with the aim of working with organisations to increase the access to nature of Black Asian Minority Ethnic people. Please connect with her on LinkedIn (Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig) so that she can invite you to join the Race Equality in Nature LinkedIn Group and be part of the change. She has been awarded the Bath and West Show Environmental Youth Award 2017 for Bristol for her Black2Nature work EYA 2017. Please also like her Birdgirl Facebook Page and follow her on Birdgirl Twitter.