My name is Mya-Rose
Craig AKA Birdgirl. I am 12 years old
and live in Somerset , in the UK . I am obsessed with birds, passionate about
conservation and love writing. I am really honoured to have been asked to write
a guest blog for Wader Quest. When I was
asked, I had to rack my brains for the most magical wader that I have seen. When you have seen 3,700 birds, it’s quite
hard to choose….
In 2012, my parents home schooled me for six months whilst we headed off to South
America for the birding trip of a lifetime (or at least until the
next big trip!). I was 9 years old and I
loved seeing so many birds and experiencing all those new places. We went to Colombia ,
Bolivia and Peru , trying to
see as many birds as we could and fitting in schooling in between.
Studying while travelling © Helena Craig |
First, we went
to Colombia
for a six week endemic chasing trip. I thought
that we hadn’t seen any particularly special waders there, but I was completely
wrong. On our first day, we had a really
early start setting off at 4.45 am. We went to Chingaza
National Park on the Eastern slope of
the Andes, a couple of hours from Bogota . Here we saw Southern Lapwing, Noble Snipe and
Wilson’s Snipe (it’s always fantastic to see something with Wilson in the name). The Noble Snipe was a new bird for me, so
that was great. We visited in March/April
and so there were plenty of American waders.
Back in the UK ,
we had driven miles to twitch these. The American waders that we saw included Semipalmated Plover, Greater and Lesser
Yellowlegs and Solitary, Least and Stilt Sandpiper. They were great birds but none were world
ticks.
Then on the
northern coast, we saw Collared Plover and Black-Bellied Plover at Salamanca and American Oystercatcher, Double-striped
Thick-knee and Willet at Guajira, which is near the border with Venezuela . Maybe one day I will find a Willet in the UK and
I will able to identify it!
That’s an amazing group of waders to have seen in Colombia , without
trying too much. However, none of these
was my most magical wader. I was still
looking for this.
© Helena Craig |
Please like her Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/myarosebirdgirlcraig?ref=hl
Trevor Ellery www.ecoturs.org
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