Bird Fair 2014 - Sunday

Another early start and an hours drive from Boston to Rutland. I was on my own today as Dawn didn't accompany me. She missed another awesome day at the British Birdwatching Fair.

In an action replay of yesterday I went into the Events Marquee at the end of a Jonathan Scott talk again, but not after I had been to the Birdwatching Mag stand, where I won a bag of bird seed. Not a bad start to the day.

I hooked up with Bev again. Our first talk was by the wonderful force of nature that is Johnny Kingdom. This photo sums up the whole half hour in one capture. It was anarchy and bedlam and hugely entertaining. He had them rolling in the aisles in the end with his clips and by the fact he was just laughing at himself so much! It was definitely one of the highlights of birdfair for me this year, and the complete opposite of Chris Packham's Malta Massacre talk from yesterday.

Next up was the Wild Brain of Britain quiz, which tends to be a bit of fun wrapped up in something quite serious! It is quite competitive to say the least. Dominic Couzens relinquished his two year crown to Stephen Moss who won the famous hare trophy for the first time. Proceedings were interrupted by a surreal moment when a semi naked woman walked on stage, painted all in black, wearing an outlandish headdress and claws, promoting David Lindo's vote for a Bird For Britain campaign.

It was time for a quick lunch, and wander around the smaller lecture marquees. I went to see Mark Avery give his Fighting For Birds talk in the Authors Marquee, which was fascinating and updated from when I saw at it WOS and Birdfair 2012. The whole issue of driven grouse shooting and hen harrier persecution is going to be thrust into the forefront of bird conservation in the UK in the coming years I suspect.

I then headed over to the Anglian Water Birdwatching Lecture theatre for three back to back talks from various people. The first was a very light hearted talk back Nick Moran, who runs the the BTO Birdtrack. The semi skimmed flycatcher will live in memory for a while! He was followed by Matt Merritt and David Chandler from Birdwatching Magazine who gave a Q&A session on optics. The final lecture for Birdfair 2014 for me was on wildlife photography in the UK, which was very inspiring, and made me want to get back out there and get back into my wildlife photography properly.

I met up with Bev and John (McCormick) for one last cup of coffee and a look back over the past couple of days. It was a fabulous two days there, and it goes ridiculously quickly. I will most definitely be back in 2015 now that I know it is so easy to do from here in Butterwick. I am hoping to drag a couple of people with me next year, as I know they would love it.

It was great to make some new friends, chat to some old ones and put faces to twitter feeds. The last person I bumped into as I was leaving was Mike Dilger, the fact he took the time to stop and say goodbye and pass on my regards to my old man, or El Tel as he calls him, sums up the spirit of birdfair to me. These people who are busy oiling the wheels of birding and conservation, whether by running NGO's, making a fuss in the papers, writing the books and blogs or presenting television programmes, they will always stop for a few minutes for a chat. It must be an exhausting three days for them, but the memories they leave people stays with them for a long time. And that has to make it worth it ...

I've added some Sunday photos to Saturdays on Flickr ..