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Sunday 18 August 2013

Birdfair report: Friday 16th - Sunday 18th August.

We had an interesting BBF this year, going for the first time as Wader Quest.

The grand entrance

Setting up.

The finished article.

As usual we met lots of old friends, some that were hitherto just virtual friends and made many new friends. The social side of the fair is one of the things we most look forward to.

Nigel Jarrett of WWT (and his sons) who is looking after the 'Spoonies" at Slimbridge.


Our old friend Tim Appleton birdfair organiser.

Young Tim, who visited the stand on behalf of his grand-dad.

Sue Healey a friend from the REGUA stand who bought a copy of Confessions.

Ivana Mansilla, who looked after the stand when we gave the lecture.
Eugenia Sebastiano who also helped us out when we did the book signing.

Good friend David (The Urban Birder) Lindo who presented us with his book for the raffle.

Much mirth and merriment with David and Peter Jones from the Andalucia stand.

Debbie Pain Director of Conservation for WWT found the time in her busy weekend to stop by and visit us.
We did fairly well in respect to our total for the WWT Spoonie captive breeding programme raising £135.12 over the weekend, it amazes me how the spoonies remain so popular despite the saturation of exposure they have received. Good thing too and long may it continue.

Our new project did well this weekend too, many people were very quick to dig deeper into their pockets to find a little more to help the project to help the 'Hoodies' on Australian beaches. In the end we raised £112.49 on their behalf.

Part of the Wader Quest stand.
The talk we gave on Saturday morning seemed to go down well, indeed it spawned a number of requests for talks at clubs up and down the country and even in the USA and Sweden!

Holding forth in lecture marquee 1.
The book seemed to go fairly well too and even involved me getting roped in to an impromptu book signing session on the Wildsounds stand.

Almost looks like a real author! Now, how do you spell Rick again?
We were also privileged to attend the Rare Birds Club lunch on Friday among many exalted folk, the Pimms went down well.

Our raffle was drawn by Jim Lawrence Programme Development Manager for BirdLife. Most of the prize winners have been informed, but one or two remain elusive and at large, little knowing they are the proud owners of some book or other.

Here's Jim holding up the lucky ticket that won Confessions of  Bird Guide, Martha Argel is holding the sack with the tickets in it.
The prizes were:

1. Book - Birds and People. Mark Cocker and David Tipling. Donated by Duncan MacDonald of Wildsounds. Won by Helen Brotherton. Ticket number 205 green.

2. Book - The Sound Approach to Birding. Mark Constantine. Donated by The Sound Approach. Won by Mike in the Wildsounds team. Ticket number 140 green.

3. Free family ticket to any WWT centre. Donated by Ellie Wise of WWT. Won by Steph Tyler. Ticket number 207 green.

4. Free family ticket to any WWT centre. Donated by Ellie Wise of WWT. Won by Nicky Betts. Ticket number 107 green.

5. Book - Birds of Brazil. John Gwynne, Robert Ridgley, Guy Tudor, Martha Argel. Donated by Martha Argel. Won by Lou and Woody. Ticket number 163 green.

6. Book - The Urban Birder. David Lindo. Donated by David Lindo. Won by Dan of the Wildsounds team. Ticket number 138 green.

7. Book - The Biggest Twitch. Alan Davies, Ruth Miller. Donated by The Biggest Twitch. Won by David Thrussell. Ticket number 127 green.

8. Book - Confessions of a Bird Guide. Rick Simpson. Donated by Rick Simpson. Won by Chris Holtby. Ticket number 111 green.

9. Book - Aves Brasileiras. Sigrist. Donated by Rick Simpson. Won by Sue Healey. Ticket number 176 green.

10. DVD - Spoon-billed Sandpiper. WWT. Donated by Baz Hughes WWT. Won by Robert Anderson. Ticket number 206 green.

The Calidrid Conundrum was won by Ruth Walker, well done to her. We met Ruth when we visited the stalwarts at the Wash Wader Ringing Group earlier this year.

Here's the Calidrid Conundrum poster.
The answers were.

Red Knot............................  F
Sanderling.........................  G
Semipalmated Sandpiper... H
Red-necked Stint...............  C
Least Sandpiper.................  D
White-rumped Sandpiper..  B
Pectoral Sandpiper ...........  A
Curlew Sandpiper..............  I
Dunlin...............................  E

Well done to everyone who entered and got them all right, it was a tough quiz.



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