In September, I received an email from Ken Keffer, an editor at Birds & Blooms magazine, asking if I’d like to be part of an article about young birders; I said yes and started getting my answers ready to send back to Ken. I had “met” Ken back in 2013 when my mother bought the book he wrote with Stacy Tornio, The Kids’ Outdoor Adventure Book, as a giveaway for that year’s Snow Goose Chase Young Naturalist Corner. I reviewed the book for my blog here, and Ken was kind enough to send along some bookmarks to give away, too.
Last week, the January 2015 issue of Birds & Blooms Extra arrived in our mail box with the young birders feature on page 29.
One of my grandmother’s favourite magazines is Birds & Blooms, and it was her late mother’s favourite as well; my family has sponsored our library’s subscription in great-grandma’s memory since she died and I think if she were still alive, she would enjoy seeing one of her great-grandchildren in the magazine and having another birder in the family!
My Christmas present to my grandmother this year was this issue of the magazine. I put a Post-It Note on the page of the article, so she could find it easily. When she opened to the marked page, she smiled and said, “Hey, I know that girl!!!”
I’m so glad she enjoyed my Christmas present, and I thought you might too.
(Click on the photos to enlarge them)
Prairie Birder 
Congratulations, Charlotte. Lovely article and photo of you. :)
Thank you very much. My mom took the photo of me and I really like it.
Nice!
Thanks!
Thanks for this great article it really meant a lot to me to read it. My name is Mya-Rose Craig and I am 12 years old. I have been birding and twitching all my life, doing a British Big Year when I was 6/7 years old, becoming the youngest to see 400 birds in the UK and being the youngest person to see 3000 birds in the world in 2013. I have also been banding since I was 9 years old.
I have a bird column in my paper and have written various articles including one for Bird Watching Magazine, the biggest selling magazine in Britain, about how to get children interested in birding.
There is no organisation you can join here if you are under 13 years old and even after that it is hard to be taken seriously as a birder. There are magazines for children but they are very much geared for the 8 year old interested rather than the 12 year old obsessed. Also there are hardly any girls who go birding here. I have also been subjected to cyber bullying by adult and teenage birders.
It is great to see young birders in America having so many opportunities and I hope we can catch up soon. It would be great to be in touch with some passionate birders around my age. if you would like to know more about me read my blog http://birdgirluk.blogspot.co.uk/
like my Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/myarosebirdgirlcraig?ref=hl
and follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/BirdgirlUK
I so glad you enjoyed it Mya-Rose. It’s so amazing that you’ve seen over 3,000 species. Keep you head up, keep birding, and don’t worry about the trolls. :)