Bird Fair Day Two - BTO Bird Ringing Demo

What a scorcher ...

It's been a sweltering day in Rutland today. We've spent most of it sweltering in lecture marquees!

We wanted to start with the Grassholm Gannets, but it was cancelled, or moved or was never was ... either way, we didn't.

After meeting up with Wildlife Kate on the Bushnell stand we went into the Events Marquee where we stayed until after lunch.

First up there was the utter silliness that was Question Of Stalk. The image of Mike Dilger doing an impression of a Black Necked Duck will live long in the memory.

Next up was a fascinating talk by Simon King on how the various senses are important in different situations.

We then watched Mark Carawdine and Jonathan Scott critique a load of photographs sent in by attendees to Bird Fair. It's great seeing the stunning images some people have taken, and it inspires me to emulate them.

The rest of the day we spent lot of time watching the ringing demos on the BTO Stand. This is a male juvenile blackcap. I learnt that all the juveniles have the rufus brown heads of the female, the males grow their blacks crowns after a few months. They also caught a Garden Warbler, which was nice year tick to pick up to end day two.

Tonight has been quiz night which the combined brain power of me, Dawn and Bev failed to win! The victorious team of Paula, Janet and Phil outshining us in the end. John made for an excellent quiz master.

Final day tomorrow ... It's going so quickly!