Last Sunday Alan spent a fun day at the Bath Bird Fair held just north of the lovely city at Bath Racecourse. A great venue for an event with plenty of space and parking, the room where the fair was taking place opened out on to a grass paddock, great for view optics. The Leica stand was right by a door so easy for visitors to test out the binoculars and telescopes inside or out. It was great to catch up with our great friend Paul Hackett who was doing a digi-scoping demo, as always brimming with enthusiasm for his subject! The Hawk and Owl Trust were also here and with them were a family of Barn Owls, an impressive Eagle Owl and a Red-tailed Hawk. Paul took hundreds of photos of the owls, always trying to improve on his best shot so far. A mystery bird photo competition was run by event organisers Ace Optics. Four photos were up for identification, the first three straight forward fairly easy, but the fourth was a lot tougher. This image showed a small sandpiper, hunched up asleep, bill tucked in out of sight, not easy! I went with my first gut instinct, rather than over analysing the picture, I thought it was a Broad billed Sandpiper. As it turned out the gut instinct was right this time, not always, and it was indeed a Broad billed Sandpiper. As it turned out I was the only person to get all photos identified correctly, with everyone struggling on number four.
It was a long but eventful drive back to North Wales on Sunday evening, no rarities to twitch on the way home, sadly.