BIRD FAIR - Day Three - More Simon Mania and an expensive Day!

Mr & Mrs King again!
Really must stop saying this - its sounds too good!!!
Hmmm.... Mrs Penelope King - sounds good to me,
what do you think Simon?

I seem to be leaving a little later each morning, probably due to the fact that driving 67 miles twice a day is getting a bit much now! Definately going to stay next year.

Arrived at Birdfair at 9.30am - beautiful blue skies and hot temperatures all day!

Fed up of wearing my khaki green birdy clothes the last two days, so decided to go in black today and wore my 2009 Birdfair Tea-shirt which I adapted last year with a v slash in the neck with a red jewel attached, which I remember Tim Appleton was impressed by when I showed him my adaption/creation - whatever you want to call it! I am soooo glad I wore this tea-shirt as you will hear about shortly!

Took my camoflage lens kit back to Stealth Wildlife quite simply because I decided it wasn't what I wanted, when I fitted it onto the lens - nothing wrong with the product though - they happily allowed me to return it and instead I bought a brilliant, small bean bag (fits in your pocket) for camera/lens - perfect for hide use - see Stealthwildlife.co.uk - very friendly people on the stand.

Quick dash to the Events Marquee for 10.30am to hear Simon King's talk again - yes again!!! but my intention was to video the whole thing with my Canon 7D!!! When I realised there were no front seats anywhere with a clear view for videoing I cheekily sat myself extreme right of the stage on the side seats where staff sit! Brilliant, I had a perfect seat! Sat in a very uncomfortable position, should have bought tripod really - sat with one foot on a box, camera bag on knee and camera positioned on top of bag to gain the height I needed! It was all going really well until the video stopped after 15 minutes and I soon realised that it did this every 15 minutes and I had to be quick off the mark to start it again! Twice towards the end, it came up with a horrible message that the camera had overheated and it automatically stopped the video, which was incredibly annoying to say the least! Managed to start it again by turning camera off/on a couple of times and then just when Simon was about finish, you know the big build up and lots of laughter at the end and applause, close up of Simon as he leaves the stage next to where I was sitting, the camera came up with 'card full' - 2 minutes after this it was all over!!!! I was gutted, how dare the camera stop with only two bloody minutes to go and also Simon why oh why did you go over time!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was gutted, sat there a whole hour in an uncomfortable position (also didn't take one picture either) to miss the finale!!! Now most people would have been happy with this I suppose, but me being a perfectionist was not! And to top it all my 16 GB sandisk card was now full and I had no others with me. So cross was I that the card could not take one hour of videoing I very extravagently went and bought a 32 GB Sandisk card from Park Cameras to ensure this never happens again! Financially I wish I hadn't even thought about doing that video in the first place! Oh well, lessons learn't.

Battled my way through the crowds to queue with the other SK fans who were queueing to get 'Shetland Diaries' book etc signed. Chatted to a Canon rep whilst in the queue about my videoing experience and he explained that the camera would stop videoing if in extreme/humid temperatures, which I suppose it was. The queue was massive as always, but I was chatting away to people so it didn't seem too long. The lady standing in front of me was 'Sal North' and her mother from the Simon King website. I was very envious when she told me she had booked to go on Simon's Shetland Holiday this year - I would give the world to do that - have not got a couple of grand to spare right now though and as I said to Sal - if people are prepared to pay that sort of money to be with Simon for a week then he will obviously continue doing them, so may be, just maybe one day, I will have enough pennies to spend time with one of the sweetest, most genuine, down to earth human beings I have ever met. Oh and by the way Simon, I hear that you don't like the fact that you don't have much hair and thats why you like to wear your hat most of the time - well I can assure you - you DO NOT need to wear a hat, in fact you look better without it - hmmmm..... 'better' not a good description.... but I don't really want to bring down the tone of my blog by putting what I really want to put!!!! Ditch the hat Simon! When I got to the front of the queue I bought Simon's 'African Skies' DVD which he kindly signed for me and also, spur of the moment I asked him to sign my Birdfair Tea-shirt!!! (see picture) - sweetly asked a man standing nearby to take my yearly 'Mr & Mrs King' photo - I wish! (Top Picture) Marguerite is a very lucky lady (Simon's very beautiful wife).

My 2009 Bird Fair Tea-shirt, now signed by Simon King!

Detail of signing on tea-shirt! (how sad am I!!!)

Needed some chill time, so escaped into the Food Marquee and found a small table all to myself in the very far right hand corner where I had the cheesy pasta and salad option again - scrumptious! How I wished a certain person would walk in and join me for lunch - not going to mention their name again, as I am sure you are all getting totally fed-up with it!





It was boiling hot now and after lunch I found a seat right next to the marquee in a strip of shade - heaven! and people watched, which I love to do. Dean Eades and his friend Craig Jones (both photograghers) came and chatted for a while and Dean very kindly checked all my Canon 7D setttings for me. I went to have a look at Craig's photography stand and his photography was stunning.

Craig Jones and Dean Eades, both top photographers.
www.craigjoneswildlifephotography.co.uk and www.birdmad.com

Food court area.

I spent the rest of the afternoon photographing stands and celebrities around the marquees. Got a brilliant picture of Nick Baker and I (see below). I was very disappointed that for the first time since coming to Birdfair that I had not seen Bill Oddie at all - I always manage to catch him on camera smiling and this year, no sign of him anywhere - I know he was here somewhere though! Also disappointed not see Birdforum's Steve Kirk or Andy Bright today - bother - no smiley picture taken of Steve either!!! Bought Stuart Winter's 'Tales of a Tabloid Twitcher' signed - looking forward to reading that.

Nick Baker and Me!


Nick Baker talking gadgets!

More Hippo's!

The BIRD FAIR AUCTION turned manic as it always does as it approached closing time at 3pm for final bids. There was only one item there that I seriously wanted, yep you can guess - a framed, signed photo of a young otter amongst seaweed taken by Simon King - last bid I saw was for £250! (see pic below)

Browsing the many donated items at the auction.

Inside the Bird Fair Auction Marquee.


Simon King's signed photo of an Otter cub in the Bird Fair Auction.

Some of the items kindly donated for the auction.

Some of the items kindly donated for the auction.

As the auction comes to a close, people queue up to place last minute bids!

Bumped into birdfair.tv crew again and met Rob Llewellyn who had contacted me for an interview and also found out that the young man I spoke to yesterday in the team was 'Robert Jolliffe' who's father Robin, was a long time NOA (Norfolk Ornithologists' Assocition) member and friend of my father's!!! (see comments they added to my post on here yesterday) Rob and Robert are business partners at 'Digital Spring'. They said my video would be posted on birdfair.tv on next week and added to Day Two's round up video.

Rob Jolliffe of Digital Spring - www.springdigital.co.uk part of the brilliant birdfair.tv crew!

Also bumped into Norfolk birders Justin Lansdell and wife Sonia and Andy Wilkinson. Justin and Sonia walked on ahead to go to a lecture and Andy paused to pose for a picture (see below).

Andy Wilkinson - Top Norfolk birder, twitcher, netfugl King,
Ceroc God (he thinks)!!!! Twinkly eyed Tart, the list goes on.....

Bought a necklace from a jewellery stand in Marquee 5 which had several beautifully crafted pieces at realistic prices - an opening there for someone as yes, you can buy designer silver jewellery at a price in the Art Marquee but apart from this one stand I found in M5, there was no other jewellery at the cheaper end of the market. Also bought a wooden hippo going cheap at end of day. Freebies acquired towards end of day: Several free Leica and Swaroski lens cloths, several Lowepro pens, another china bird whistle, a beaded lizard, a parrot, RSPB DVD 'Invaders of the UK overseas territories'.

Took lots of pictures of the Birdfair Mural - stunning art work created by several of the top bird artists. Oh and earlier on, artist Chris Rose very kindly allowed me to take a picture of two of his paintings that I mentioned yesterday (pictures below).

BIRD FAIR MURAL

BIRD FAIR MURAL - in detail

Had to enlarge this - I LOVE bee eaters!


CHRIS ROSE - ARTIST www.chrisrose-artist.co.uk

Chris Rose - Artist, who very kindly gave me permission to photograph these two beautiful paintings and to add them to my blog.

Said goodbye to Jerry, Debbie and Gill on SK stand, but no sign of Simon to kiss goodbye (I mean 'say' goodbye!!!!) so thank you again Simon for the most wonderful birding walk I will probably ever have! and to Birdforum and Carl Zeiss for making this possible and for making this the BEST Birdfair weekend EVER!!!

Finished the day with watching Four Ospreys at Lyndon from Wader Scrape hide and the furthest hide away. It was a long walk from the carpark after walking round the fair all day, but most certainly worth it.

Ospreys at Lyndon - rubbish shot though, too far away for 300mm lens!

The sun was setting in a rainbow of colours as I left the carpark at 8pm. Arrived home shattered at 9.30pm, but with so many exciting, memorable moments of the Rutland Bird Fair - looking forward to Bird Fair 2011!!!


ALL EXHIBITOR STANDS WILL BE ADDED TO A THREAD ON BIRDFORUM.NET WHICH I WILL BE CREATING THIS WEEKEND - 28th/29th August. Will post the link here when completed.