We might as well call it the International Bird Fair – I spent a very large part of today talking to friends and colleagues from Spain and the USA.
It was good to meet friends from the BirdLife International partner in Spain, SEO, again and other birders from various parts of Spain too.
And the Cornell Lab has been at the Bird Fair for the first time ever and I met Chris Wood and Jessie Barry who were very kind to me, and great birding companions, when I visited Cornell in May. It was good to see them and they’ve been meeting folk from the BTO and RSPB and BirdLife over the last few days.
And I met Jeff and Liz Gordon and Bill Stewart from the American Birding Association too. Will there be an American Bird Fair soon?
Who else? Andy Clements bought me an ice cream, Nick Milton bought me a beer, Debbie Pain, Rebecca Nason and Robert Gillmor said yes (to what you might ask? – watch this space!), I shook hands with a publisher, Nick Baker took 15 minutes to tell me why he didn’t have time for a 10 minute chat (It’s OK Nick – we’ll catch up later), Derek Moore was lovely (but hard luck on Norwich, the ref should have blown the whistle a bit sooner), I spoke to several colleagues from the RSPB, I finally got to Marquee 1 as everyone was packing up but in time to say hi! to my friends from Butterfly Conservation, I learned that Birds and Forestry can be bought for £45 second hand in my brief visit to Marquee 2, I met a young lady who wants to blog so I talked to her (but didn’t have much time – but good luck Bethan!), I saw an osprey, I saw two great-spotted woodpeckers fly from the same direction and to the same direction at about the same time that two had done it on Friday, I sold a copy of Blogging for Nature to an ex-colleague and picked up the money from another old friend, I got an email from Ian Newton pointing out that the answer that I hadn’t found in his book was there if only I had looked hard enough, I was offered a trip to Australia which I couldn’t take because I am working hard for someone else at that time and there was probably some other stuff too.
Another quiet day at the Bird Fair.
Whereas I didn’t, and still don’t, approve of the change from three days to four days of the Cheltenham Festival, there is an argument for a four day Bird Fair – I haven’t run out of people to talk to and I hardly spent any money and I didn’t go to a talk – more time please! It was great.
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Nick Baker took 15 minutes to tell me why he didn’t have time for a 10 minute chat (It’s OK Nick – we’ll catch up later),
Hi Mark, Sounds like a great birdfair, hope to catch up next year, time permitting!
It was a great event as usuall. Good to meet you on Friday, Mark. I hope they had a record gate. It seemed it might be going that way on Friday, judging from the number of people there.