I’m a fan of the Bird Fair but as I wrote in my Birdwatch September column I think Bird Fair has declined in standing in recent years. I skipped 2022 but have attended the last two, post-covid, Bird Fairs. It seems to me that people are voting with their feet and that what was once a must-attend event in the birding calendar is that no more.
That’s true of me. This year I went to Lord’s on Friday (Jimmy Anderson’s swan-song), stayed overnight and attended Bird Fair on Sunday. I would never have made that choice a few years’ back.
Covid was a blow to the Bird Fair but it came at a time when the Bird Fair politics had gone sour and the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust had pulled out (apparently on the grounds that they were bankrolling the event too much). I wrote here that Bird Fair was declining before covid, and re-establishing such an event after a two-year complete break was always going to be difficult. Year 1, 2022, was at a new venue and stinking hot, 2023 was at that same venue but had torrential rain and 2024 was at a different venue again (a pretty good venue I thought) and overlapped with the Euros where England were in the final on the Sunday evening (if you missed it, we lost to a much better Spanish team). I admire the logistical ability of Tim Appleton and his team to get the show on the road again to the extent that it is.
I’m told that everything is fine and that I’m just a grumpy old man. The latter might well be true, although I am smiling as I write those words, but the former can’t be the case.
Although you will read that the Global Bird Fair… Actually, let’s just pause there a moment. Pretentious title or not?
Although you will read that the Global Bird Fair made a record-breaking donation this year, of £95,000, that is judging it since it made its comeback post-covid with the world-encompassing title.
The actual sums of money raised and handed over to good causes from Rutland Bird Fairs of the past are listed below – they put the ‘record-breaking’ 2024 in some wider context.
| Year | Donation (££) |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 95,000 |
| 2023 | 93,000 |
| 2022 | 83,000 |
| 2021 | covid |
| 2020 | covid |
| 2019 | 168,000 |
| 2018 | 322,000 |
| 2017 | 333,000 |
| 2016 | 350,000 |
| 2015 | 320,000 |
| 2014 | 280,000 |
| 2013 | 270,000 |
Attendance at the 2024 Global Bird Fair was 13,000 (click here) whereas back in 2014 it was 22,000 (click here) and in 2018 it was 23,000 (click here). The challenge for the Global Bird Fair is to get many of the missing 10,000 attendees back again. Without a more popular offering of events that is never going to happen.
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