About Jane

Jane was a student at York University during the early 1990‘s. When Jane returned to live in York some years later, she began to visit the campus birds regularly. She was to name many of the snow geese, including Blueberry and all her goslings.

Jane outside Heslington Hall

How did Jane first develop her interest in the campus snow geese?

Jane has enjoyed going to the York University campus to look at and feed the ducks, geese and swans. She met Blueberry and Mr Snowy shortly after they arrived on campus in 2001, and visited the University to see them and the other birds.

In the spring of 2003, the black swan pair (Malcolm and Matilda) built their first nest by the waterside at Derwent College. Jane became interested in the swans after seeing their newly hatched fluffy cygnets, and she enjoyed watching them grow and develop. Sweep, the female swan, is still living on campus in 2014.

In the spring of 2004, Blueberry was to develop an attachment towards Jane, and began to follow her around the campus. Over the following years, Blueberry was to pair up with 2 different snow goose partners and she attempted to raise goslings every year. She always maintained her bond with her friend Jane, and allowed her to share in many of the special moments of her life.

Jane feeding Blueberry in 2008

Jane also grew to recognise each of the individual birds within the wider snow goose flock, and she has enjoyed watching the goslings hatch and grow up each year. After the sudden and tragic loss of Blueberry in 2009, Jane carried on visiting the rest of her flock and she also continued to observe the goings on within the wider group of campus snow geese.

Why did she want to write a book about Blueberry?

In 2012, Jane was diagnosed with breast cancer and this prompted her to begin to write up some of her bird notes she had kept over the years, particularly observations about Blueberry and the other “snowys”. She felt she wanted to tell Blueberry’s story to ensure that her life-history was to be remembered by people who may have known her and the other campus birds, and so Blueberry could take her place in the collective memories people have of York University from the era 2001-2009 while Blueberry lived there.

Sky in 2014

Jane feeding the black swans

Writing the ’Blueberry’ book has been a long, slow process for Jane, involving many stops and starts due to the demands of her cancer treatment and also her longstanding problems with anxiety. The book was finally completed in 2014, and Jane is hoping to donate the proceeds from the initial print run to York Against Cancer, a local charity currently raising funds for a new mini-bus.