Bird Fair Rutland plus Ospreys

Our yearly trip to Rutland Bird Fair. It is about a 2 hour trip, we start out at 6 o'clock and decide to stop off on the way to try to see the Dotterel reported yesterday, we spend about an hour scoping the ploughed fields but no luck,
We arrive with 10 minutes to opening time, and get in to the fair without too much trouble.
The first port of call is the Swarovski stall, which is high up so you can look through their new ATXG5 right across the water and I must say this is a really top bit of kit.

Bird Ringing

Now we get to the bird ringing stand, this is always a must for us, it is fascinating to see how small the birds are and they show us how to handle the birds so not to harm them,we also are given some rubber ring bands which have a bird number printed on them so you can track the said,bird on the Internet which I think will be nice to follow.
Birds that were ringed while we watched, a couple of Blue tits, Robin, Chiffchaff, Reed Warbler.
Moving on to the main show tents the first celebrity we see is Mike Dilger who appears on the one show, he is talking to Johnathan scott who films wild life, I have a quick talk with Mike and Brian takes a photo of us.

The beer tent

I must say it is really nice to find how pleasant and accommodating they are.
It is a really nice hot sunny day, but the down side to that is it is to warm inside the tents, you are glad to get out in to any breeze you can find, failing that the beer tent seems to help.
Next tent and we find Johnny Kingdom, we always have a laugh when we get to his stall, another photo taken and we move on to the next tent to see who is doing any book signing today.
We missed Bill Oddie the last two years that we came, but not this year as he is sitting here signing his book, Brian buys his book and gets it signed, he asks if he can have a photo with him,and he is happy to oblige.

I brought myself a Butterfly & Moth guide as I need to know a bit more about them.

Bill Oddie

Robert never came this year as it is his sons 21st birthday,& as we will be going up his house tonight to celebrate he needed to stay behind to help get things ready,
Robert is the one that buys himself a picture most years, as that is he's thing, we missed him this year.
We have seen all we need to see now, so we walk around the the trails and find a Brimstone Butterfly and get a photo of it, it's the first of the year for Jimmy & me.

Time to go now, but before we head home we go round  to a Bridge on the main road to get good views of the Ospreys, we found this spot last year, it saves having to have a long walk to the hides, only downside it seems to be a favourite run for cyclists & they seem to want to run you down rather than slow down.
We had already seen Osprey flying over at the fair,but this is a better view here.


 Now we drive round the water's to try for Black Tern, we haven't been round the whole site before, and we soon see how nice a place this is, we are now at the North Basin, it is packed with people enjoying the sun & views over the water, with boats sailing up & down, a lovely scene ,but no luck with the Terns.

Now it is really time to head home,another  great day and a nice party to look forward to tonight.







Johnathan Scott




Brimstone Butterfly

Mike Dilger



Charlie Hamilton James