Birdfair 2026

Every July, birdwatchers around the world migrate to a nature reserve in the East Midlands of England called Rutland Water. This sprinkling of shallow lagoons is the setting for one of the best events in the wildlife calendar: Global Birdfair.

I first attended Birdfair when I was studying at the University of Cumbria. I bought a ticket for one day rather than the full weekend, expecting a couple of charity stalls and stocking filler gifts. What I found was a pop-up village of huge marquees and stages, with a packed programme of talks and workshops.

I bought stunning wildlife art and even asked the great Steve Backshall what his favourite animal to film had been so far (it was the snow leopard). I left that day feeling frustrated, knowing there was loads I hadn’t had time to see.

The next year, I stayed the full three days and packed in as much wildlifey goodness as I could. But this year would be my most special Birdfair yet: I was joining the programme as an event speaker!

My second book, a collaborative project covering low-carbon wildlife watching locations across the UK, was published earlier this year. To celebrate and share the low-carbon love, my fellow co-authors and I were delivering a talk at Birdfair. It would be hosted in the Turnstone Author’s Stage alongside the likes of Stephen Moss, Lucy Lapwing and also Nick Baker, who I grew up watching on The Really Wild Show.

But before my talk, there was plenty more Birdfair to enjoy. One of the first day’s headliners was Nigel Marven, another pillar of my childhood who I avidly watched on Walking with Dinosaurs.

But instead of Allosaurus and Coelophysis, this time Nigel was talking about their distant descendants: owls. One of his stories was about Digger, an orphaned Burrowing Owl who Nigel formed a close bond with while he was recovering from tonsil cancer. After the talk, my partner and I met the man himself!

Amongst the nature activities on offer was a workshop on needle felting with local felt artist Harriet Morley. I’d never done needle felting before but I’m a keen embroiderer so fancied trying a different material medium.

Harriet guided a small group of us through the process of creating a barn owl picture from felt. It was simple yet so effective! You take a square of felt, arrange tufts of coloured wool however you like, then simply stab them down using a special barbed needle that magically catches and snags the wool together.

We were all following the same barn owl design but ended up with totally different results, depending on what colours took our fancy and how we wanted the owl to look. I attempted a heart-shaped face which ended up squigglier than I’d have liked, but given it was a first attempt I was pretty chuffed.

I recommend you have a look at Harriet’s beautiful work on her website to see how a true felt master does it!

As soon as I returned to Birdfair on the second day, I started feeling the nerves jangle in trepidation of my talk later that afternoon. I’ve done plenty of camera club and bookshop presentations before, but this was Birdfair! Glastonbury for bird nerds! I wanted to make a good impression and was excited to share our book with a brand new audience.

We had a fantastic turnout of around 70 people, and took it in turns to share highlights from our research trips to wildlife sites using public transport.

I had covered the Scotland section, and as those who’ve visited Scotland will know, trains and buses aren’t always easy to come by in the more secluded areas. At many of the clifftop nesting sites and ancient forests I visit, buses are an impossible dream, so when writing this book I had to be creative.

I decided to focus on urban wildlife, highlighting the diversity that can be found in Scotland’s towns and cities. One of my favourites was Oban on the west coast. Oban can be unfairly disregarded as merely a stop-off point between ferries to islands such as Mull, but it has plenty of wildlife in its own right.

To see birds such as Common Guillemots and Razorbills, you usually need to venture to remote cliffs far from a train’s reach, but in Oban you can see a rarer seabird, the Black Guillemot, nesting in drainpipes embedded in the harbour wall.

In mainland Britain, Black Guillemots are found almost exclusively in Scotland, with the highest numbers around the west coast where they can be seen throughout the year. While writing the book, I spent a long morning watching them bobbing in the shallows and zooming into land, their lipstick-red legs dangling.

My long telephoto lens attracted the eye of dog walkers and cyclists, wondering what I was taking photos of. When I pointed out the Black Guillemots, they were surprised and delighted to see such unusual birds right beside the path. It was wonderful connecting people to nature on their doorstep like that.

After the talk, we had our very own book signing. There we met some lovely nature-minded folk, including a young girl who’d already seen Golden Orioles and Smews – two impressive birds I haven’t managed yet! It’s so refreshing to see more and more young people excited by wildlife. The child version of myself would have been so chuffed.

After three days of Birdfair buzz in 30° heat, I was running on fumes and needed some tranquility before we journeyed home. Seeing as we were on the fringes of Rutland Water Nature Reserve, it would have been rude not to pop in for much-needed solace and shade.

I lost count of how many Gatekeeper butterflies I saw on the tracks around the wetlands, and once perched inside a cool hide I soaked in the hushed soundscape of clucking Moorhens and whistling Red Kites.

It was early evening by the time I retraced my steps out of the reserve, but I had one more wild encounter in store. Throwing a glance down a narrow clearing between trees, I stumbled to a halt as I clapped eyes on a Muntjac deer, equally frozen with one hoofed leg raised. We watched each other for a full minute before the deer twitched back into motion and melted into the undergrowth.

I didn’t have my camera on me and regretted it at first, but when I wasn’t grappling for the right settings I could simply soak up the moment for a change and enjoy a dose of wildness after a packed weekend.

Bountiful Broadleaf Birds

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Jul 4

There’s something about broad-leaved woodland that feels like a jungle. ‘Lush’ is the word that springs to mind, with a dense canopy of zingy lime leaves concealing thousands of birds and insects.