Thursday 22 January 2015

A Ringing Winter’s Day – Sunday 4th January 2015



In the winter in our house, it is cold. In the winter at Chew Valley Ringing Station, it is also cold. So you could probably guess why I was so unwilling to get out of bed. But I did it, and another day of ringing commenced.

It’s always harder to get up towards the end of a holiday.  All that lying around in bed makes you lazy.  Going twitching just makes it all worse.  I had been twitching on the 1st of Jan, after being out until 1 am and only getting an hour of sleep in my bed.  Sleep in cars is just never the same.


Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig catching up on sleep whilst twitching
Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig


Then on the second of Jan, I planned a long lie in.   Midday would have been fine.  Instead, Dad woke me up at 7.30 am with shouts of a deer in the garden.  That meant that I did not even get time to adjust to wakefulness, just a rapid jump out of bed.


Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig catching up on sleep whilst year listing
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig



The Saturday was a morning of rest, but it just did not seem enough.

That Sunday morning of 4th Jan 2015, Dad woke me up at 7.00 am, so that we were not late getting to the ringing station, which is a whole ten minutes drive away.  I know I’m really luck to have Chew Valley Ringing Station so close by.  It’s a really big ringing station with lots of people involved.  I know that some people have to ring out of cars, whilst we have a building to keep us dry.

Somehow, we still managed to arrive later than usual, at about 8 and were just in time for the first round.


Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig and Mike Bailey on a ringing round
Photograph taken by and copyright Oliver Edwards Photography



A Young Birder's Ring Day


At the ringing station, we help gets the nets up first.  On a Saturday morning all the nets go up from scratch.  Whilst at the end of the day because we will be back the next morning, the nets are furled so that birds can’t get caught up in it and then unfurled on Sunday morning.  After the ringing session on Sunday mornings, the nets are always taken down.


Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig on a ringing round
Photograph taken by and copyright Oliver Edwards Photography

But that morning, they had not opened most of the nets because it was so frosty. As we started to walk towards the nets, Mike Bailey (my trainer) mentioned something about Redwing that I only half heard.


Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig with rings
Photograph taken by and copyright Oliver Edwards Photography


I have been ringing since I was 9 year old.  The first couple of years, I worked hard on improving my detailed identification skills of birds in the hand.  As an experienced birder, I could at least identify the birds, which is a good starting point.  Some people want to learn to ring without having any birding experience at all.  That is fine but obviously takes a long time.


Rings at Chew Valley Ringing Station
Photograph taken by and copyright Oliver Edwards Photography


During our first round, we caught the usual Blue Tits but nothing out of the ordinary.  If you remember from a previous post, they are actually really aggressive little birds. 



Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig holding Redwing
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig


The day went quite slowly and I extracted a few birds from the nets and ringed a few, but nothing amazing. It was a cold winter day and it was not usual for there to be rare birds on days like that.  So, on our third round we were excited to find that a Redwing had been caught in the net.  We left someone else to remove that one from the net and turned the corner.  As we turned the corner, we saw that there were three more! I got one out of the net myself and then ringed it.  We had been trying for ages to catch some Redwing, which are winter thrushes, and now these had turned up in a completely different net without any encouragement!  It was great to ring Redwing, which was something I had not ringed before.




Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig holding Redwing
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig


Later in the morning, I was handed a bag with a large bird inside.  They would not tell me what was inside as I had to identify it myself. This made me feel nervous though of putting my hand inside.  What if it was a Crow or Rook, waiting to take a chunk out of my finger?  I need not have worried, as it was a beautiful Great Spotted Woodpecker.  No issues with ID then.  It had already been ringed and so I just processed it, recording that it had been caught and noting all the measurements.



Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig holding a Great-spotted Woodpecker
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig


Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig holding a Great-spotted Woodpecker
Photograph taken by and copyright Chris Craig



Then managed to ring a Moorhen which was new for me. So, what started as a cold quiet morning ended with three exciting and fab birds. 


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












2 comments:

  1. A fabulous report and well done you on getting out there. Give my love to the original Albert.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Gary, thanks so much. Albert is the only cuddly animal still in my bed and he sends his love back. Hope the biking year list is going well and shame we won't see you this time.

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