Ever since I heard of the British BirdFair I've wanted to go. Being social and a lover of birding, I knew it was right up my alley. But I was also curious about a birding event that boasts attendance of well over 20,000 people a year.
I can tell you now that it was amazing and if you are interested in birding, go. Find a way to do it: give up daily coffees at a coffee bar and brew your own, cut back on trips out to eat at restaurants, do a Kickstarter, shift vacation plans from Florida in February to a trip to the UK in August, tell family and friends that during holidays and birthdays in lieu of gifts, you want cash or air miles--just go. BirdFair is a must, not only for the chance to see really cool products, but to experience a truly world wide crowd of people who care about birds and conservation. You can not only "buy stuff" but you learn from what other countries are doing to help birds. I cannot recommend a trip to BirdFair enough.
The photo at the top of this blog encompasses the spirit of the fair. In their Andalucia booth, Peter and one of his guides share cheese, wine, chorizo and tomatoes from their birding area in southern Spain with past trip participants. I met Peter Jones in Israel a few years ago and when I passed, he insisted that I join them for tapas. It was delightful to meet their British tour participants and learn more about birding opportunities and conservation challenges in Andalucia.
The map that shows where the marquees and lecture areas are for BirdFair...it's enormous.
You can purchase passes per day or get a three day wrist band. I knew with my ability to talk and the chance to see old friends, I would need a full three days. My initial plan was to do a fast circuit the first morning, noting where friends had booths and noting which booths I wanted to chat and spend more time with and learn about their product and services. Or to just find surprises that I didn't know I wanted. I also knew that if I didn't do a quick once over, and did it marquee by marquee, I would feel rushed with whoever I chatted with and be thinking, "This is great, but I wonder what's in the next marquee, I need to wrap this up."
The Pork Roll at BirdFair offered at one of the smaller lunch stands away from the main food area--best sandwich there for non-vegetarians. And the British are brilliant--you have the option of adding extra "crackling" to your sandwich aka very crisply pork fat.
After that I grabbed a pork roll and a BirdFair Bitter (a flavorful sturdy ale) and circled who I wanted to go back to in the program (programs cost a pound and are well worth it, though there's lots of signage to help get you with scheduling as well), I created a strategy for each day. Even with that plan, I was unable to hit all the booths I intended, but that may have more to do with me being a chatty gal, especially when I find friends I haven't seen in years or friends I've only known online and met for the first time face to face.
Some of the unique birdhouses from Out Of Our Tree who has the tagline "quirky woodworky."
There truly is a little bit of everything at BirdFair from backyard birding like the above very unique bird houses...
To bird food...and since I have the sense of humor of a 13 year old, I giggled mercilessly at the idea of purchasing 50 fat balls...that are "no mess." Though on Facebook someone informed me that these are called Meisenknödel" in German which is supposed to mean "tit dumpling." What a delightful phrase!
To birdfood...
Inside one of the many marquees at bird fair.
To hip gear for the birding lifestyle...
To cameras (all the top brands were there)...
Swarovski not only had a booth, but a tower to test out digiscoping equipment on Rutland Water.
To just about every optics manufacturerer you can imagine...
This is my friend Mike Watson from BirdQuest. He's helping me put together some digiscoping trips to Panama and Scotland. Details very soon and if there's someplace you'd like to go with me, let me know!
To birding tour companies and a lot of government tourism boards...
To books! This book cracked me up. It's nothing but rare bird accounts for Norfolk. I love that this book exists, I love that it is so specific to just Norfolk. I loved reading all of the accounts of the first time the bird was spotted. We need more books like this in the US. A fun read with valuable information...but not too dry.
I asked a couple next to me if they would take my photo with my book. The obliged but the very nice British lady did ask, "My dear, don't you know how to take a selfie yet?"
I was incredibly surprised to find my book at one of the booths. I brought a couple along "just in case" but to find it out on the table, prominently propped up was a huge and delightful surprise. If I had more room in my suitcase, I would have spent way more money at BirdFair. Not only did they have new books, but they had used book dealers and I have a fondness for early 20th century bird books. Ah well, next time...
So this is entry one for BirdFair. There will be more. Non Birding Bill and I are currently galavanting around London and he really doesn't want me spending our vacation time writing about how fabulous BirdFair was. I'm going to break down the next two posts about it into logistics of getting there and then some of the amazing things that I saw like this:
A scotch tasting held at the Islay booth...why yes...yes I am very interested in visiting Scotland...for birds and other things.
They had scotch tastings at some of the booths! And not just cheap scotch, nice scotch. I actually saved visiting the Islay birding booth for a scotch tasting so that way I could ask legit questions about bringing a tour there and not just be a lurker for some Laphroaig...but they seemed just as eager to sip than ask questions so after some information, we settled in to sipping and exchanged emails for later. I understood, it was a long day and this was a nice way to relax.