Birdfair Round Up – Day 2
Today the Birdfair opened to the public, and they came in their droves armed with wellies, umbrellas and sunscreen to cover all eventualities. And those were just the ones we could see –there were also many folk walking around in full camouflage gear. At least, we assumed that’s what they were wearing, all we could see were their faces and carrier bags bursting with brochures! Apparently this was the busiest Birdfair day ever recorded – and it certainly felt like it! We had a particularly hectic time of it as we were not only selling our newly published book on the Tropical Birding stand, but we were also signed up to do a series of book signings on other stands around the site. And as if that wasn’t enough, we were privileged to be giving a talk in the prestigious Events Marquee, this year an even more impressive venue than previously, with a mere 550 seats in the auditorium (!), a green room, and posh loos for the VIPs. We were scheduled after ‘Just a Linnet’ featuring Chris Packham, Mike Dilger, Jonathan Scott and Dominic Couzens who entertained a full house. Sadly, one or two misguided people left the marquee before we had the chance to give our talk, but the large number of people who were still in the audience seemed to enjoy our talk – a real whistle-stop run through The Biggest Twitch with particular emphasis on our time in Ethiopia in keeping with the conservation theme of this year’s Birdfair: the endangered endemics of Ethiopia. Having given our talk, we moved to the official Wildsounds book signing tent where a queue of enthusiastic book buyers awaited us. It felt great to be signing our own book, we’d finally come of age as authors! And that set the tone for the day as our books continued to fly off our stand. We were at risk of getting writers’ cramp from too many signatures! And it was great to chat to so many kind people who wanted to buy our book to read the full story of The Biggest Twitch. One couple who’d pre-ordered the book online had not only already read it from cover to cover, they’d been so thrilled by our account of birding in Ecuador with Tropical Birding that they came straight to the stand to book themselves a trip to Tandayapa Bird Lodge and the Ecuadorian cloudforest. What an endorsement of our book!
Trevor, Debbie and Alan
In fact there was no escaping The Biggest Twitch at the Birdfair this year. Not only was the book for sale on a number of stands around the place, but the original design for the cover was taking pride of place on the artist Robert Gillmor’s stand in the Art Marquee. It is a beautiful and eye-catching design, so it was no surprise to learn that Robert sold all 5 limited edition prints he had produced.
Robert Gillmor and Ruth
We’re out of practice at standing on our feet all day, so we were glad to sit down in the evening and share a meal and a few beers with our friends before heading back to our hotel room to collapse, tired but happy.