Last year's Birdfair was especially memorable for me, as I won the holiday competition being run by Birds & Nature Portugal, which I took back in March. It was great on the Saturday to meet Bernardo Barreto, our guide for the first part of the trip, together with Joao Jara, who heads up the business. Both great guys. I also dropped in and saw Bob Ford, who runs birding weekends based out of the Heights Hotel on Portland. I booked myself a weekend there in November, getting the Sunday night free of charge.
There were some interesting talks on potential birding destinations - the Baltic coast in Germany, Varanger in Norway and the Gambia. I also spent some time in the authors forum listening to Charlie Elder, author of Few & Far Between and Mark Avery & Keith Betton, authors of Behind the Binoculars. The latter interviewed a personal favourite of mine, birdwatching great Ian Wallace, who is always great value to listen to. Needless to say I bought both books - Charlie Elder particularly was a lovely chap.
Having stayed overnight at a Days Inn on the A1 near Peterborough (not bad despite the poor reviews on TripAdvisor), I was back on site again early on Sunday.
The day started with a talk by Ruth Miller & Alan Davies on their new book The Joy of Birdwatching. They're always very entertaining to listen to.
Talks on potential birding destinations covered France (poorly delivered as he was late) and Costa Rica. Young South African birdwatcher, John Kinghorn was inspirational with his account of his Southern African Big Year of 803 species. Nick Acheson of Naturetrek performed admirably after his projector broke down to inspire us with his attempt to see all of the world's big cats.
I paid a visit to David Lindo's stand to pick up a copy of his new book Tales from the Concrete Jungles, which he very kindly signed for me.
I then finished my Birdfair experience on the Swarovski stand, where courtesy of the good folks at Viking Direct, I purchased a new ATS60 scope with a 25m-50m eyepiece at a very attractive price.
A footnote. On both days I wore a distinctive t-shirt designed by @yolobirder to raise funds for the hen harrier protection campaign. It was great to spot a number of other wearers, and to get positive comments about it from so many people. My picture has since been tweeted by Dr Mark Avery and 'Henry' the Hen Harrier, whose head I got to try on. For further information, please visit www.henharrierday.org and sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting here
All in all, another excellent & enjoyable event.
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