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.
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 thought 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. Apparently, 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
Hi, I’m Dr. Mya-Rose Craig. I am a 19-year-old prominent British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, diversity activist as well as an author, speaker and broadcaster. At age 11 I started the popular blog Birdgirl, and at age 17 I became the youngest person to see half of the birds in the world.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Having got back from an after school twitch to see a Rock Thrush the day before at 9 pm, I was straight to bed. The next day was a Saturday and I had another bird to see!
Arctic Warbler is a non-rarity in the UK but is one of only 3 non-rarity birds that I have not seen. They all tend to occur on the east coast of England, which is across the country to where I live, as we are based on the South West coast. We were up very early (meaning the middle of the night!) again on Saturday 14th October 2017, the first day of my half-term holiday. There was an Artic Warbler at Kilnsea in East Yorkshire which is next to Spurn a huge birding hotspot. I slept whilst Dad drove us to the bird and we arrived at about 8.30am. The Artic Warbler was being seen in the pub car park and so we joined about another 30 birders to look for it.
Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at Arctic Warbler twitch, Kilnsea, East Yorkshire 14 October 2017 Photograph copyright Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig
It wasn’t long before we saw the Arctic Warbler, showing high in the trees about the car park, getting really great views. We watched it off for another couple of hours before we headed off. It was really flighty so, despite my best efforts, I didn’t get a photograph of it. It was really amazing to see this bird. It wasn’t the rarest but it was special. Now only two non-rarities to see in the UK, Little Auk and Icterine Warbler which are both also east coast birds. It was also a new world for me, number 4725, not that I’m counting.
We then drove down the road to Easington, to see a Rose-coloured Starling which was in someone’s front garden and actually managed to get some photographs of it.
Rose-coloured Starling, Easington, East Yorkshire 14 October 2017 Photograph taken by and copyright Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig
Rose-coloured Starling, Easington, East Yorkshire 14 October 2017 Photograph taken by and copyright Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig
I had revision to do on the way home and Dad drove me home as quick as he could, as I had a party and sleepover with friends at 3 pm. As usual, I didn’t mention what I had been doing…all my friends had been sleeping in all morning in preparation for the party.
It was my 3rd new bird of the season and I was hopeful that there would be more to come.
About The Author
Hi, I’m Dr. Mya-Rose Craig. I am a 19-year-old prominent British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, diversity activist as well as an author, speaker and broadcaster. At age 11 I started the popular blog Birdgirl, and at age 17 I became the youngest person to see half of the birds in the world.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
As many people know, as well as blogging I am active on social media with a Facebook Page and Twitter, to talk about what I care about.
I am open about being British Bangladeshi combined with my Dad’s British heritage. I post a lot about what I feel is wrong about the world, whether this is about conservation, environmental issues, hatred, sexism, LGBT rights, human rights or indigenous rights.
I rarely talk about my religion as this is personal to me but sometimes when I see Islamophobic posts, I respond as a Muslim being attacked not just an activist. When people tag me and say vile and disgusting things to me about my religion or my community, they are attacking my very heart. I can’t separate myself from what I was born into and what I’m part of.
Since the Brexit referendum started, I have been regularly attacked by Muslim hating trolls. Some might say that they have the freedom of speech to do that, but I don’t agree. They don’t have the right to come onto the social media of a child (age 12 when these particular trolls started) and say hateful things. Because I have been bullied on-line so much, my parents check my accounts during the day and block trolls before I can see them, which I think ends up being 1-2 times a week. However, I still see plenty of them. I don’t respond, I just block them. Although it’s hard to forget something you have seen and is stuck in your head. I’ve never mentioned it before as it’s been something we’ve dealt with on our own as a family.
The hate against Muslims is everywhere. I see it school, on TV, on social media, in all my local shops where papers like the Daily Mail stare up at me from the shelves with their racist headlines, from parts of my white family who think it’s OK to buy the Daily Mail or Sun and leave them lying around when I visit or who want to argue about race, Islam, terrorists or refugees. Basically it’s everywhere.
Since Donald Trump won the election in the USA, these racists trolls have the space to shout out louder. On Sunday 29th Jan 17, 4 particularly vicious trolls made me angry. I don’t know how they found me or how they knew I was Muslim. I blocked them and then tweeted this:
“I am a 14 year old Muslim birder. I have had to block 4 Islamophobic trolls today. That is what life is like 4 UK Muslims, let alone in USA” @BirdgirlUK
After tweeting, I went out birding and then came home and went to bed early. I was expecting a few close friends to like it but was shocked when I saw in the early hours that I’d had a huge number of responses. It was overwhelming. In the end my tweet had 766 likes, 412 retweets and lots of supportive comments (and a few more trolls of course). Almost all were people I had never heard of, many from the USA. Some were birders I knew, birders I didn’t know, teachers, villagers; people all around me showing me that they were “with me”. The quote that sticks in my mind from the comments is Michelle Obama’s “as they go low, you go high”.
How many normal birders read that tweet and think to themselves, you know what, I’m going to reply to that child’s tweet and tell her why it’s OK to hate Muslims. Who thinks you know what, I’m going to tweet her and tell her what I think about Muslims or why Brexit wasn’t racist or why Trump is doing the same think as Obama etc. What kind of people are they? What has any of that and the anti Muslim comments that go with them got to do with my tweet? All the positiveness gave me the courage to speak to the Bristol Evening Post when their reporter Michael Yong contacted me.
This is the article on the front page of today’s Bristol Evening Post, http://bit.ly/2lzUKG2. If you are a UK birder, you may notice a few errors, but they’re not really important to the current issue, so please don’t focus on them.
Since talking about it, I do feel better but I think it will be a long while until I am able to read the Evening Post article or deal with some of the comments. It is just too painful….
Postscript: There has been a very supportive article in The Sun, a right wing racist tabloid newspaper, about my Islamophobic trolls. What is really ironic is that they have caused much of the hatred in the UK against Muslims with their own Islamophobic articles. I am hoping that a few of their readers will see this article and maybe think about the impact hatred has on people or a child like me. We haven’t read the article as my Dad is from Liverpool, so we boycott The Sun anyway because of the nasty lies they told about those at Hillsborough just a few days after the disaster in 1989. This is a recent article in the Guardian about the Sun and Liverpool Football Club http://bit.ly/2kcJQkQ. This is the link to The Sun, but I don’t want to encourage anyone to look at the article unless you are really interested in The Sun and it’s usual racism http://bit.ly/2laOgwA. Maybe they will use the article to able to say that they’re not racist?
This is another article in the Local Newspaper The Somerset Guardian
I think what has been hardest to deal with is the lack of support from those around me in school and outside in the white rural area where I live. I have always been aware of the few Minority Ethnic people where I live, but it is only now that I realised how little they understood or the impact of being the only muslim in my school of 1200 pupils.
About The Author
Hi, I’m Dr. Mya-Rose Craig. I am a 19-year-old prominent British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, diversity activist as well as an author, speaker and broadcaster. At age 11 I started the popular blog Birdgirl, and at age 17 I became the youngest person to see half of the birds in the world.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
This Stonechat species had been at Dungeness, Kent for over a month and finally we couldn’t ignore it any longer.
DNA results had confirmed that it was in fact a female Stejnegar’s Stonechat from Asia. As such it would be one of a few records of this species for the UK. However, the bird wasn’t like typical records and so the DNA test is being carried out again, just to be sure.
So far neither the BOU nor UK400 are counting this species as a full species. However, the IOC World List that I follow does include it as a separate species. It’s almost unheard of for this to happen, where a new bird would be counted on my world list but not the UK list.
Taking all of this into account, we decided to go to see the bird on the basis that it made sense for it to eventually be added to the British list and at least hopefully UK400 would add it.
In any case, as it was a new bird for our world list, it was definitely worth going to see just for this.
We made a late start at 7.30 am but still arrived at Dungeness in Kent at 10.45 am. Although it had been raining on and off during the journey, Dungeness was really warm for January at 16 degrees, sunny with lovely winter light.
As we parked up, it was clear that birders were looking at the bird. We had heard that the bird was mobile and so not necessarily easy to see. So, just to be sure, we grabbed our binoculars, jumped out of the car and stared in the direction that the birders were looking. We immediately saw the Stejnegar’s Stonechat on a nearby post, which was a lovely little pale Siberian Stonechat type species.
Stejnegar’s Stonechat, Dungeness, Kent Photograph taken by Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig
The pressure being off, we stayed for an hour, getting amazing views of the bird on nearby posts. As the bird was mobile, we decided to stay where we were and wait for it to come close and be in the best place light wise.
Stejnegar’s Stonechat, Dungeness, Kent Photograph taken by Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig
From here, we went to the RSPB reserve and caught up with a few birds that were new for the year. We managed to see a great collection of birds including 2 Long-eared Owls, 1 Redhead Smew, 3 Slavonian Grebe, a 1st winter Caspian Gull and a Great White Egret. There were plenty more birds to try and see but unfortunately, I needed to be in Bristol for 6 pm as I was interviewing someone for Black2Nature. So finally at 2.30 pm, we dragged ourselves away from Dungeness.
I loved catching up with so many great birds and it made me contemplate year listing again, for a few moments! I do definitely plan to see lots more birds this year, especially focussing on the ones I haven’t seen for a while.
We also met Jonathan Nasir, The Random Birder, who was from Hackney, London http://therandombirder.blogspot.co.uk. It was interesting to hear how he got into birding. His Dad had nature books on their bookshelves which Jonathan loved looking at and so he became obsessed with birds by quite a young age.
Postscript – A week later the second DNA test showed that this bird was in a fact a European Stonechat. The previous DNA test had been mixed up with the Spurn bird from later last year.
About The Author
Hi, I’m Dr. Mya-Rose Craig. I am a 19-year-old prominent British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, diversity activist as well as an author, speaker and broadcaster. At age 11 I started the popular blog Birdgirl, and at age 17 I became the youngest person to see half of the birds in the world.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Speaking at Association of Science (ASE) Educators Conference 2017
Today was a really interesting day, as I did a one hour talk at the Association of Science Educations (ASE) Conference 2017 at Reading University. The ASE is a membership organisation for Science teachers and I spoke to those teaching pupils aged 11-18 years.
It was interesting to visit Reading University and look around as well as Reading, I have visited Birmingham, Manchester and Cambridge.
My talk was about how they were a key part in the programme to get more BAME people into nature, by them concentrating on teaching secondary age teenagers about nature, conservation and environmental issues as well as trying to get them interested in and connecting with nature. I focused on the need to educate pupils about studying sciences, ensuring that they and their parents understand the professions that they can go into with say a biology degree, such as conservation or environmental careers.
I talked about the research, Camp Avalon, the Race Equality in Nature Conference and Black2Nature.
These are my slides and notes from my talk and it would be great if you could spread it to as many people especially teachers to read possible:
Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at ASE Conference Photograph copyright Mya-Rose Craig
Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at ASE Conference Photograph copyright Mya-Rose Craig
Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig at ASE Conference Photograph copyright Mya-Rose Craig
About The Author
Hi, I’m Dr. Mya-Rose Craig. I am a 19-year-old prominent British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, diversity activist as well as an author, speaker and broadcaster. At age 11 I started the popular blog Birdgirl, and at age 17 I became the youngest person to see half of the birds in the world.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Lyrical, poignant and insightful.’ - Margaret Atwood
This is my story; a journey defined by my love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
