Tim Appleton, joint Bird Fair founder (with Martin Davies) pictured with placard-man Chris Packham on the Friday of this year’s Bird Fair.
As the memories of Bird Fair 2016 begin to fade, and as we rush through the 358 days until we reassemble for the 29th annual British Birdwatching Fair, here are just a few thoughts.
- the Bird Fair is a well-established traditional point in the ornithological calendar – it is a festival of birdwatchers and birdwatching. It’s for us and we love it.
- But for it to exist, and for me to attend and enjoy chatting to my mates (which is what I spend a lot of time doing) it has to be a viable commercial operation and that means people either have to sponsor it or make money through it – there is going to be a commercial element to it. I’d be interested to know what the entrance fee would be if many of the more commercial elements were stripped away…
- The food is more varied and better than it used to be, the beer is still great and the coffee is still essential. The prices are perfectly reasonable for a festival event in a field with unpredictable weather and attendance. Yes, I’d like everything to be half the price it is too, but you just have to put your ‘I’m going out to enjoy myself’ face on.
- Yes there are too many old blokes on stage at the Bird Fair, I’m sometimes one of them, but when we’re all dead you’ll miss us. Have a look at the Author’s Forum line-up – mostly blokes, overwhelmingly blokes. Why was that? These authors are promoted by their publishers who presumably look through their stable of authors and… And…? Find that they have a lot of blokes writing their books?
- Given that there is an underlying commercial element to the Bird Fair I think that it is moving slowly in the right direction in terms of engagement. When you have so many birders (although it is rather broader than birders) gathered together in the same place then I’m surprised that the RSPB and Wildlife Trusts don’t do more to energise the masses of their supporters over the weekend. Still, the Bird Fair is moving slowly in the right direction in adding in more, whisper it quietly, political subjects to the programme. I thought it was great that we had Natalie Bennett at the Bird Fair this year (I would, I invited her) and I’d like to see the day when a couple of panels each had a couple of prominent MPs on them talking about nature – badger culls? raptor persecution? how your taxes fund farming? renewable energy? It would take ages to run out of controversial and relevant topics. But then, I write this every year (see 2015, 2014, 2013) but we are making slow progress. Although, of course, the Moorland Association and the Game and Wildlife so-called Conservation Trust were too scared, or too arrogant, or too lacking in confidence in their arguments to appear in front of 500 eco-zealots at the Bird Fair (and Amanda and Teresa would have helped the gender balance – they were asked…). Why not get a Dimbleby (doesn’t matter which one, they are as similar as a Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler) to chair a question time type debate next year?
- I spent a lot more money at the Bird Fair this year – I bought a book of Audubon plates in the auction for £70. Aren’t auctions clever? They play to one’s (mine anyway) competitive nature to ensure that one pays too much for things. Actually, I am very very happy with the book – I’ve looked at it a lot and it reminds me of travels in the USA, birds seen, National Parks enjoyed and conversations with waitresses in diners. And if I did pay over the odds – I have no idea – I am completely happy because here at the Bird Fair my money is going to a good cause – international wildlife conservation.
- Thank you Tim Appleton and everyone else who made the 2016 Bird Fair another in a long line of great successes.
- Henry had a good time at the Bird Fair. Will he be back next year? Maybe the campaign for Hen Harriers will have moved to a completely different place by then. We’ll see. But Henry has greatly enjoyed his second Bird Fair, and like the rest of us, has seen some things at the Bird Fair he’s never seen before and made some new friends.
[registration_form]
I always find it interesting how an unquestioning acceptance of the status quo is always seen by the right as ‘apolitical’ when it’s nothing of the sort whilst questioning that status quo is regarded as unreasonably and dangerously ‘dragging politics’ into areas where it’s ‘not wanted’. Any former passivity by the Bird Fair in some areas is just as ‘political’ as the current drift towards a more ‘activist’ stance.
john – that remark marks you (and me) down as eco-zealots straight away. Probably extremist eco-zealots.
Let’s design a new t-shirt, 100,000 of us wearing one will certainly get folk asking us about the issue?
I visited the Bird Fair for the first time in well over a decade this year. So my thoughts are:
• The Bird Fair is a lot less white, male and middle aged than it used to be. The sex ratio in particular is much better.
• Having heard the stories about the price of food, I took my own. But it honestly wasn’t that expensive.
• Simon King was absolutely brilliant, speaking to a packed event on the need live more sustainably. You could hear a pin drop. But the cognitive dissonance between his message of ‘Enough’ and the rampant consumerism of the rest of the Bird Fair was painful. I understand these companies subsidise the event for the rest of us, but even so…
• I’d welcome more debate. Many of the ‘Birds of…’ talks were thinly disguised adverts for travel companies.
• I’d also welcome more talks on wildlife other than birds, and more on science than ‘where to go to see X’.
• I bought plenty of books, including ‘Inglorious’ and ‘Martha’. Thank you Mark, for signing them.
• I really enjoyed, but one day is enough. But that may say more about me than the Bird Fair.
Andrew – thank you – your perspective is useful over that decade.
I think its really encouraging that the Bird fair has taken the bull by the horns and moved into engaging with real, current, British issues. I’ve been concerned over many years by the way birding and the issues affecting birds seem often to be quite detached – and I agree with John about the ‘we mustn’t bring politics into it’. I just don’t agree with that when birds we all want to see, appreciate and value are disappearing right in front of us – think not just hen harrier, causes all too obvious, but equally Turtle Dove where the reason may be more subtle – but as a land management professional I want more and lore people to understand that they are just as much about clear Government policies as HH extermination is about criminality largely ignored by Government. So one way or another when we go birding we are all eco-zealots – and its great that issues like HH and the brilliant communication of people like Chris Packham and Mark is turning what we all care about into action.
Having been to probably 4 birdfairs in the last 7 years, I know that I use it as a catch-up with people I dont see very often, and as a county recorder with folk like BB and RBBP. Yes, there is a vast commercial element but the folk I talk to are the societies and NGOs – a far more interesting interaction, and I find it refreshing that I don’t get ‘touted at’ by any of the commercial folk – the are quite happy for me to ignore them.
Las year I joined Birdlife Malta, as I discovered (unbeknown to me) that my mother had been supporting them for years and was no longer doing so and it seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do with limited income after having a long conversation about their work. something I probably would not have done if I hadn’t been there.
The food does seem to have improved this year and I love the local produce tent, but one of my main criticisms is that there seemed to be far fewer talks on a research topic this year compared to last year (when I heard several interesting projects aired) – this years highlight of talks was one on Montys harriers by Mark Thomas of the RSPB and a Dutch colleague who has found out some amazing stuff on the breeding season needs/habits of our other troubled harrier. that seemed to be the only non ‘Birds of’ talk of the day apart from a swifts one first thing which I missed being stuck in traffic on site.
The crowd is far more diverse than maybe would be expected, and the presence of the Next Generation Birders helping out with BB was great – a chance to chat to young birders and find out their motivations was very welcome ( I was one once, so I know how weird it can be).
This year Bird Fair was more vibrant than ever, with plenty on offer. The campaigning element was welcome, it galvanised a lot of people and help them realise that we are engaged in a real movement for change. The commercial side is essential too, both to make BF run but the eco-travel industry largely underpins the conservation effort in many countries, where the latter would barely exist without the former. What we do here is a pointer to sustainable futures elsewhere. We are very much on show so BF needs it’s International brigade, to take away that message.