Day One at Birdfair. 

BSBI volunteers at Birdfair 16/8/2013
From left: Jodey and Rachel; John & Monika Walton
 (VCRs for Warks) and BSBI President Ian Denholm.  

The first day of Birdfair and the phrase "Birders' Glastonbury" was heard this morning when the rain got quite heavy, but the reserve paths coped really well. And then the sun came out again, and the people flooded in and our feet hardly touched the ground all day. Here's the Birdfair Team for Day One, catching up during a rare quiet moment.

Lots of people wanted to talk to us about wildflowers to attract pollinators and butterflies into the garden, and about ways of managing wildflower meadows. We were able to help and then point out how useful it is to be able to ID plants, to find out what grows where and how that's changing over time, and about our co-operation with other recorders like CEH. It was great to have Jodey Peyton from CEH on the stand today, to offer a field ecologist's perspective and to explain how CEH are supporting biological recording.



The BSBI volunteers spoke to people from all over Britain (and a few from Europe) who are interested in botany - some already doing it and some wishing they could get started in ID or pick up old skills again. 

A few were botany graduates - from those distant days of botany degrees in British universities - who haven't picked up a lens for decades and wouldn't mind a bit of support to get started again.

We logged 148 conversations throughout the day with people who came to the BSBI stand, but for a while it was so busy that we simply didn't have time to log anything. Lots of people stopped to look at the banner and then walked into the stand because the flowers looked so attractive and they wanted to know more about BSBI and what we do. So we told them! 

We also managed to catch up with some old friends like Sue Southway of Plantlife (above) and Nigel Brown (right), who has made Treborth Botanic Gardens such an inspirational place to visit, and who really deserves a Blogpost of his own - so check here next week.