Rutland revisited, an annual report.

As usual the Birdfair was a great success. For me, the fact that it was a free weekend, in that I wasn't working on a stand was great as it meant that I could spend time with Jack and Josh as well as catching up with old friends. There is really something special about the birding community. Pam and I chatted to a young man that we hadn't seen for nearly thirty years. He now lives on the Falklands and has his own family with a 13 year old daughter and a son at University in Canterbury. The years since we last me on Scilly rolled away and the friendship as firm as ever. Of course many acquaintances are renewed on a much more regular frequency. Some never disappoint, still arriving in white shoes and George Michael fancy dress, what a mixed bunch we are!

 The boys and I had a good walk this morning in our annual quest for some good views of the famed Rutland Ospreys. Of course these weren't the only birds on view.

 Common Terns gave us some excellent opportunities to see them flying, squabbling and sometimes quietly perched.

 In front of the hide a Great Crested Grebe was sitting on a nest, At one point it was obviously concerned with something flying over head.

 We discovered that she and her mate were in fact renewing the nest and that at the moment there were no eggs laid.

 No too far away, at least as far as the scope was concerned, two Osprey were sat out on one of the T shaped perches provided. It was just too far away for a really decent photograph and of course aesthetically  the telephone wires behind did nothing for the  picture.

 The male Great Crested Grebe returned while we were there and added a new meaning the the well known phrase, "would you like some weed dear".

 I guess as one of the major aims of the Birdfair is the promotion of conservation it was appropriate that we spent a lot of time watching the species that first led to the birth of the RSPB.

 For a bird so elegant on the water they are strangely ungainly when they are on dry land or standing on the nest platform. Like divers, grebes have their legs set far back on their bodies and this makes them very efficient swimmers but clumsy landlubbers.

As well as the grebes the water was full of other water birds, with Coots, Tufted Duck and Pochard in large numbers. A few Teal were mixed in and Shoveler and Mallard were feeding near by. Other birds we noted while we in the hides were a Whimbrel that flew round repeating it seven note whistle at regular intervals and a Green Sandpiper. With good view of several species of Dragonflies and Damselflies it was an enjoyable couple of hours, before we headed to the Bird Fair for some serious Pond Dipping.

The 2011 Birdfair at Rutland

Just back from a long weekend centred round the British Birdwatching fair at Rutland Water.

It was a great weekend that Pam and I spend with Jack, Josh and of course Pete and Nina. Now I am no longer working on a stand all weekend we can spend some of the weekend at Birdfair and the rest doing other things with Nina and the boys, while Pete works on the Birdquest stand. This year we stayed at Lyddington and at the delightful Lyddington B&B.

Not only was the accommodation first class, set in some great grounds but it is situated right next to the Marquess of Exeter, a fine pub with a good restaurant, if a little slow when busy on Saturday night.

I did get a short time to walk round the village, which is one of the most attractive I've seen. Above is Bede House, next to the church and it looks worth a proper visit some time. It is a National Heritage property, so our membership will come in useful.

At the Birdfair, Simon King presided over the British Birds Photographic Awards, and gave his usual enthusiastic appraisal of each of the winners.

For the second year running Pete collected the prize for the best Digiscoped Picture. I must say this is a skill that in the attempts I've made I have completely failed to master.

On the Saturday we had an outing to Barnsdale Gardens. This collection of 38 Gardens was the project of Geoffrey Hamilton, famous for his multitude of TV, Radio and magazine appearances and writings. Each of the gardens shows an individual design for various needs and styles. Jack and Josh found the maze rather to their liking.

A splendid Bronze bust of Geoffrey modelled by his son Chris is in the Memorial Garden. The gardens are now in the safe hands Nick Hamilton, who was on had to answer questions. We met him in the organic vegetable garden, where there were some amazingly large cabbages!

One of the very many stunning arrangements in the gardens.

Ponds always hold a fascination for little boys and it didn't take these two long to find lots of interesting things.

One of the most prised was this Dragonfly exuvia. It is one of the larger hawkers, but I haven't keyed out which one yet.

There were a huge number of Ladybirds around, most were Seven Spot, but this one looks like one of the Harlequin morphs to me.

Walking round the gardens at the B&B the keen eyes of the boys soon found some good things to look at. W saw a Brown Hawker and a few Butterflies, but this bug was a little more unusual. I think it is call Coreus marginatus. The larvae feed on the seeds of plants in the dock family (Polygonaceae).

From be end of the B&B grounds there were good views over the rolling countryside. We saw two Red Kites and later six Common Buzzards were out in the recently cut fields, presumably finding rodents that were out there feeding on the dropped seeds.

A walk from the Osprey Centre did give some distant views of the female of the pair. She was sitting on a post and failed to give us a flying demonstration. Still it was good to know that they had reared three young. Hopefully I'll be seeing them as the migrate over St Margaret's alter in the year. Jack and I also got a fleeting view of a Kingfisher as it left one of the pools in front of a hide where we were told it had been on view.

Overall it was a great week end. Meeting old friends, spending time with the family and catching up on various things going on, not only in the birding world but also in other areas of natural history. As usual the Art Marquee drew me back several times, where the standards of the work exhibited was, as always superb.

A tasty snack.

A rather damp weekend at the birdfair had some high points. We were staying at the Old Rectory at Belton and the "kids" were camping at the same place.

On Sunday morning, instead of going into the Birdfair we did a bit of birding and general wildlife watching at the Rutland Water Reserve. As we were about to leave the camp site a Common Buzzard called loudly and circled overhead.

As well as the birds on the reservoir we had a good time watching the butterflies and dragonflies along the nature trail. Common Darters and various species of Hawkers were common. Many were Migrant Hawkers, but there were a fair number of Brown Hawkers and I think Southern Hawkers as well. I did try to get photos of a Brown Hawker but failed. From one of the hides we watched a Grey Heron stealthily stalking through the pool.

It seemed to have spotted an item of prey and slowly swayed before swiftly darting towards it. I assume the swaying is to enable the Heron to just the exact distance it's prey is away from it. As it's eyes are on the side of it's head it doesn't have 3D vision like ours, or an owls, so the swaying is needed to get the two images than allow it to use parallax get get a measurement.

I was expecting it to get a frog or a small fish, but I was surprised to see it had caught a Brown Hawker that we had been watching ovipositing a few minutes earlier.

The Brown Hawker is one of our largest dragonflies.

This certainly wasn't the way I expected to get a picture of a Brown Hawker, but you can certainly see enough to identify it.

When it finished it did seem to have a satisfied expression, it mush have been a tasty morsel.

We did see three Osprey, two juveniles and a male. The female hadn't been seen that day and may have left on her southward migration. The juvenile above is sitting by the nest.

The views were distant but not bat through a scope. It did have a short fly round a couple of time but didn't come any closer.

The male was nearby on a post and it also seemed a bit restless, it might not be long before they are passing through St Margaret's on their way to a winter holiday in West Africa.

Birdfair

Off to the Birdfair, at Rutland, for a three day break. Hopefully there will be some familiar faces to chat to, like Kent Photographer David Featherbe.

It should be fun, we're staying at the same site as Nina, Jack and Josh (they're camping, we've got B&B) so we'll have a good time with the grandchildren, while Pete is working on the Birdquest stand. On Saturday Pete's in the Bird Brain of Britain, chaired by Chris Packham. He's representing the ABC, with Madagascar as his specialised subject. Let's hope we have one functional set of brains in the family!

No birds in Kent this weekend, PLEASE, back on Monday.

Three days at Rutland

Pam and I spent three days in the Rutland area. Some of the time at the Birdfair and the rest having fun with Jack and Josh, two of our grandchildren and Pete and Nina. The Birdfair reached 20 years old this year. The first year raised £300o for conservation and last year £226,000, in total £1,940,000 and this doesn't include the monies that individual charities, like the local trusts and bird clubs made towards their conservation projects. Martin Davis and Tim Appleton are to be congratulated on organising such an amazing event, although they've not always done too well with the weather.

The Birdfair was just as good as ever, with a mixture of stands, some commercial and some for the many societies both local, national and international concerned with birds and other conservation. There were loads of book stands, and these as always were amongst the most popular with and enormous selection of books, from antique to the latest field guide available.

I spent some time visiting friends on the OSME stand, a society I was secretary of for a number of years. Like all the regional bird clubs they do great work in supporting and sponsoring research in their region, in this case the middle east. In the centre of the picture is Dr Dave Murdoch, a driving force in the development of our knowledge of the current state of the birds of Syria.

I stopped off to have a chat with David Featherbe, a local Lecturer and photographer of Nature and Landscape. He was, as usual in good form and seemed to be doing well at the fair.

On Saturday Pam and I spent a lot of time in the Art Marquee. Anyone interested in all forms of Natural History are should go. There is just so much fabulous art it is mind boggling. This year one stand that really caught the eye was Nicola Theaktson's Ceramic sculptures. They have a certain "brutal" reality that is sometimes sacrificed for a more cuddly impression by other artists. I really liked the African Wild Dog above, an animal I've not seen in the wild and is probably number two on my want list.

In the same way I loved the pose of this Polar Bear, it is so redolent of the Polar Bears we saw when we went to Spitsbergen.

Back at the campsite, where the younger part of the family were camping, Jack found a rather large Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar, wandering along a path, looking for somewhere to pupate. Jack and Josh are both very observant and love all things natural, so this was a great find.

At the Birdfair we spent some time at the Butterfly Conservation stand, and above Jack and Howie Stones were checking out the Hawkmoth Caterpillars on show there.

Josh was checking the moths and was helped by Tony Davis of Butterfly Conservation, who runs the Pyralid Recording Scheme.

There was a lot to keep the children (and Nanny Pam) busy. Here the three of them are colouring and doing various tasks at the Wildlife Trusts stand.

Possibly the most exciting time for them was a Bug Safari with Nick Baker (of Television Fame). His enthusiasm really got the children involved and with various expert helpers they had fun and learnt a lot. Jack enjoyed using the sweep net, although this wasn't new to him, as at the ripe old age of nearly eight, he's already got his own net and a good knowledge of what's likely to be in it.

Nick Baker and Josh are examining the net to see what goodies are in it.

Having caught it, get it in the pooter and give it a thorough grilling to find out what it is. It's great to see such enthusiasm for wildlife being passed on the the young members of the group.

The fair was lucky to have a support from several well know faces, as well as Nick Baker, Simon King, Jonathan Scott, Bill Oddie, Mike Dilger, Janet Sumner and Chris Packham were all there to take part in various lectures and activities. The "star" visitor of the event was Sir David Attenborough. He visited to show on Saturday for a book signing and later gave the Celebrity lecture, "Alfred Russel Wallace and the birds of Paradise". Unfortunately this was sold out before I tried to get tickets.

There can be no doubt, in my mind any way, that Sir David is the greatest communicator about natural history we have had in this television age. His passion, clarity and the straightforwardness of his programmes have been instrumental in fostering the interest in natural history in many people. If you add to that, he seems a thoroughly nice person, then he has to be everybodies favourite personality. Here he is taken to the book signing, with Tim Appleton leading the way and two security men to keep him safe, well he is a national treasure!

Back at the campsite Jack came up with another good find, a Lesser Stag Beetle, a species I've not seen before.

On Sunday we visited Rutland Water Butterfly Farm and Aquatic Centre. This is a great place to visit, especially with children. This Owl Butterfly (Caligo eurilochus) was one of the many spectacular species there.

As well as Butterflies and fish there were also such beauties as this Tarantula.

Josh loved feeding the fish and he and Jack were trying to work out which was the largest fish as my lens fogged up.