Why I am not going to Global Birdfair this year

Global Birdfair 2023 - me with Tim Appleton and Dale Forbes

Those of you who follow my blog regularly know that very rarely I stray away from bird stuff in my writing. In recent weeks many people have asked me whether I am taking part in Global Birdfair this year. At this point, I want to share my disappointment and frustration with attitudes I am receiving in recent months, that have led me to decide not to go to Global Birdfair this year.

I have been going to Global Birdfair for many years, representing BirdLife Israel. It really is THE place to be. Tim and Penny's friendship and support are so precious to me personally and to BirdLife Israel. It is always great to meet so many close friends, make new friends and hang out with amazing people from all around the world, to talk about birding and conservation. I am affiliated with BirdLife International, Swarovski Optik, eBird, Rockjumper Birding Tours, OSME, Dutch Birding - several good reasons to visit Global Birdfair. In normal years we go as a BirdLife Israel team, present our conservation work, and promote our international events including Champions of the Flyway. We also promote birding tourism into Israel, emphasizing the connection between birding tourism and conservation.

Since October 7th, our lives here in Israel have shattered. In the first weeks after the Hamas attack, waves of support and comradeship arrived from friends and colleagues around the world, helping us at BirdLife Israel and me personally to pick ourselves up after the horrible massacre. However, after the Israeli military operation began in Gaza, the positive vibes were muted. Instead, I started receiving vile, offensive messages from people and from organisations around the world. Surprisingly, even people that I regarded as personal friends turned their backs on me and on BirdLife Israel. Not only ignored, but actively accused me personally of committing genocide, killing children etc. This is nonsense of course, but I felt very troubled and confused by this approach. Maybe I was totally naïve. I believed that people in the birding and conservation community have some kind of basic understanding of how conservation NGOs work, and how much support conservation NGOs need especially in extreme situations like we are in now. No, some people are simply stupid, ignorant or brainwashed, unable to separate their own political or social agendas from their views about conservation and about basic human relationships and behaviour.

I want to clarify. I am not an Israeli spokesperson. I don't take responsibility for the actions of the Israeli government since October 7th (and before). I even openly criticize the Israeli government. The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is horrible, inflicting unimaginable suffering on civilians in Israel and in Gaza. I hope the war ends yesterday. Those who know me are familiar with my deep belief in cross-border work with our neighbours, developing partnerships with Palestinians, Jordanians and Egyptians in pre-war days. Accusing me of genocide and murder, and openly calling for my death or deportation, just for being Israeli and Jewish, is unacceptable and very wrong. Moreover, people from the global birding and conservation communities openly calling to boycott BirdLife Israel, which has happened, demonstrates how rife are ignorance and hypocrisy in these communities. 

All of these events, combined with the huge increase in antisemitism and anti-Israeli cases in the UK, led me to decide not to take part in Global Birdfair this year. Obviously, it is pointless to promote birding tourism into Israel in the near future. Moreover, I was concerned that if I tried to give a presentation or hold an event, idiots would sabotage our efforts. The whole situation is so toxic at the moment. It is very sad for me not to take part this year. I know that during birdfair, seeing all the smiling faces and sensing the strong vibes of global solidarity (unless you're Israeli) FOMO will take over me. 

I have hope that this horrible war will end soon, the hostages will return home and our crazy region will regain some kind of fragile stability. I am sure that a few months later those holding racist and antisemitic opinions will not feel comfortable to share their dangerous views anymore. The Israeli civil society, and I include myself in it, is resilient. We struggle to keep our heads above the water, but we'll make it to the other side. The strength of the civil society in Israel gives me hope for the future. I promise that in Global Birdfair 2025 BirdLife Israel will return stronger than ever, proudly showcasing the good conservation work that we do, for nature and people, against all odds.

A nice bird for good measure.

Global Birdfair and elsewhere in the UK

Sorry for the delayed update, in recent weeks I have been super busy, and also lost some motivation to photograph birds and especially to use social media. The combination of super hot weather my crazy country falling apart makes me want to dig a cool burrow and jump right in. As long as I can still bird in it... My birding is concentrated to super early morning sessions - later on it becomes unbearably hot and sticky. 

I visited the UK earlier in July. The visit was focused on Global Birdfair, that happened in Rutland Showground during July 14-16. I am late to the party - so much has been written on social media about this event. So many selfies... I travelled there with Alen from my team, and we represented BirdLife Israel at this fantastic event. We promoted there our conservation work, including Champions of the Flyway: The new project for COTF24 was launched - tackling illegal killing of birds in Tanzania, working with Nature Tanzania. How exciting!

The new Birdfair was a great success, in my opinion. Tim, Penny and their team managed to generate the hype, the buzz that was so distinctive in the 'old' British Birdfair. It felt very 'right' to be there - it certainly was THE place to be. Great to hang out with so many friends from all over the world. My selfie motivation has dwindled too, so not many photos from birdfair.

Damn it, it had to be done

I enjoyed the VR birding experience offered by the talented Sounding Wild brothers - very cool! Can't wait to get you guys down to Eilat for some reeeaaaal migration.

Everyone complained about the weather. I loved it! Such a welcome respite from the heat in Israel. Good to see wetland restoration happening in real-time.

Of course, early morning birding had to be done. En route, Alen and I stopped at Grafham Water, where we were glad to relocate the Lesser Scaup that had gone missing for a few days. Too distant for photos but a welcome WP tick for me. Somehow I managed not to see one during my four years in the UK.

Birdfair morning sessions were dedicated to checking different Rutland Water hides - I actually enjoyed birding there quite much. I screwed up a possible Pec on July 16th, out of Dunlin hide. It was distant but looked good in the bins. By the time I got the baby scope on it, crows flushed it and it was lost.

I like it!
Enjoyed birding Rutland Water NR using this @SwarovskiOptik baby. Now heading to @GlobalBirdfair - final day. @Team_eBird checklist streak secured. But who will be eBirder of Birdfair? pic.twitter.com/16KlJS1V3l

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) July 16, 2023

Then Alen and I continued to London for two days of meetings with supporters there. The meetings went well. Early morning birding sessions were done in Totteridge Valley, not far from where I was staying, they were OK too. Firecrest was the best, Mandarin was a photo tick...

Then I went to Norwich, oh Norwich... A couple more days with friends, beach walk, birding and beer. Another Lesser Scaup on Colney Pits, again too distant for photos. Enjoy this Norwich soundscape - I appreciate Groppers. Haven't seen one in Israel yet - maybe this year?

Back home in Israel, migration is picking up, mostly shorebirds at the moment. See you again when I find the energy to pick the camera up.

Birdfair 2017 summary and thoughts

Another Birdfair done and dusted. As every year, I worked for my Israeli organisation, Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, to showcase our conservation work in Israel and promote birding tourism to Israel. This year our team included Dan, Jonathan, Noam and Tsadok from IBRCE, Nadav from Hula, our Godfather Yossi Leshem and his wife, Richard and Anette - quite a team! It felt like a family reunion to be together with my old friends. And they provided free, extended babysitting services 😃

Nadav and Noam

Our main efforts this weekend were geared towards Champions of the Flyway - recruiting teams for next year, meeting sponsors and increasing the reach and impact of our project. We had a huge and highly successful event on Saturday night to celebrate Champions - success stories from previous recipients about the birds saved using COTF funds (see example here) were truly inspirational. The event was endorsed by our partners at BirdLife International, and CEO Mrs. Patricia Zurita's words touched everyone's heart. Here is Dale Forbes from Swarovski Optik temporarily handing over a new pair to John Kinghorn of Youth Africa Birders. In COTF 2017 they won the titles 'Knights of the Flyway' and 'Guardians of the Flyway', and donated this pair to Doga Dernegi (Birdlife Turkey).

Then the new COTF movie by Yuval Dax was unveiled - brilliant movie:

The celebration ended with a fab live gig by the wonderful Morning Bride and Bill Thompson III of The Rain Crows.
On a presonal note, Mark and Amity are dear friends and my family spent much of the weekend hanging out with them - huge pleasure.  This is from an intimate fringe gig they did on friday:

As we have done in recent years since our move to the UK, I was joined by my family which was great fun. Here is my son Noam with Prof. Yossi Leshem, very pleased with himself after winning a beautiful prize draw - stunning artwork by the tallented Jo Ruth:

Here are some more personal highlights from the weekend, all with phone camera so sorry about poor quality. More photos, mainly even-poorer selfies, are on my Facebook wall.

Marc Guyt - a great friend from NL

Fine Islay whiskey. Lagavulin 16 was especially good.

Progress of the traditional Birdfair mural. Day 1:

Day 2

Day 3 - final product!

From a personal point of view, it's an empowering but exhausting event. Empowering, because of the strong sense of a large, powerful conservation family I belong to. Exhausting, because I talked, and smiled, non-stop, for three full days. On Sunday the effects of this constant chat and smile were evident on the faces of all exhibitors. Thousands and thousands of people walked past our stand, many stopped to talk; a 100m walk to the toilet or for a coffee could take an hour. But the rewards are great. Some cynical souls may keep away from Birdfair, but for me these connections and networking opportunities with friends and colleagues from around the world are invaluable. And great fun.

Using social media, online criticism by 'anti-Birdfairers' against the commercialism of the event, and the Celebrity-selfie culture that is picking up, with the increasing virtual 'power' of birding and conservation 'celebrities'. I understand this criticism, and for a person who feels at his best when I'm birding, outdoors, three days of intensive shoulder-rubbing is not my natural passtime. However, I must confess, I like selfies; it's always a slightly awkward moment, and very often they look bad because they are taken with the poor reverse camera phone. They look almost-alright on phone screens, but on computer screens they look awful. But in today's social media world, selfies are almost a necessity. And in selfies people normally smile, and hug, which are two positive activities IMO. My kids were really keen to spot big TV starts such as Chris Packham and Steve Backshall, like rarity-spotting. They were thrilled that I had a meeting with Chris Packham - so had to grab the selfie-opp, and an autograph for the kids. This is by Jonathan:

Arjan Dwarshuis, with whom I spent some time in Israel during his incredible Biggest Year in 2017

After all, selfies are part of the game. All those who work in the interface between birding, conservation and 'The Public' need to use social media in this way or another. I don't think that my selfie with Chris or Arjan increased my 'public leaverage', if there is any. But looking at the Big Picture, these are the 'rules' in the world we are working in.

Another slightly less pleasent aspect of Birdfair is the occasional expression of anti-Israeli opinions towards us during Birdfair, by casual visitors and also by some 'higher-ranked' figures in the birding industry. The main argument to try and weaken Champions of the Flyway is the support we get from Israeli Ministry of Tourism. Even though I do not enjoy listening to this often uninformed criticism, the only thing I can do, and my colleagues too, is to shrug our shoulders and try even harder to do our best to promote cross-border collaboration for Bird Conservation in our region. We have been doing it for many years, because we believe it's the right thing to do. If some people get confused and fail to identify that we try to be the 'Good Guys', despite what they think about the Israeli Government's policy, that's alright with me. And when people approached me during Birdfair and started a conversation of bigotry and hate, I used my good British manners and thanked them very much for their kind words.

Birdfair 2016

Or, continuing the title of my previous post, what all birders do.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending Birdfair once again. I worked most of the time in the Israeli stand, mainly promoting Champions of the Flyway.

Before the storm began

Friday was pretty hectic

We launched Champions of the Flyway 2017 - we will work together with Doğa Derneği, Birdlife Turkey, to prevent illegal killing there. It was an honour to meet their president Dicle Kilic - what an impressive woman. Looking forward to work with her in the future.
It was also great to see how the global reach of COTF extends from year to year. This year, COTF2016 Knights of the Flyway decided to donate a pair of Swarovski SLC to Aves Argentinas - here Hernan Casañas recieves the bins from Swarovski's Dale Forbes and Bill Thompson III. Hopefully, this will help them in their efforts to save Hooded Grebe from extinction.

It felt almost like I was back in Israel - great to spend time with my friends and colleagues who came over from Israel - Dan, Jonathan, Meidad and Amir.

We had wifi!

Thanks to my son Uri for the snap

I participated in two major events this Birdfair. On Friday night I spoke in the main RSPB events - Frontiers of Migration, in tribute to Martin Garner. I joined Paul French and Keith Clarkson who were both brilliant. Adam Rowlands hosted the event - he did a great job.

On Saturday I represented OSME in Bird Brain of Britain. It was great fun and I shared 1st place with Ashley Banwell, but all contestants did a great job. I was happy to learn that my prize went to support a youth camp on bird migration in Azerbaijan.

As always, Birdfair is an amazing place to meet old and new friends. It is like a neverending conversation, lots of laughs and good fun. One of my personal highlights was when I met the legendary D.I.M. Wallace, together with my good friend Mark Pearson from Filey - we talked about Basalt Wheatears. Ian actually read the article I wrote for Birdwatch some months ago.

I had little time to walk around but as always I was captivated by the mural created by some of the world's finest wildlife artists:

I think my family had a good time too

Till next year, good night.

Birdfair affairs

This weekend I participated in the 27th British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water, better known as THE Birdfair. I was part of the Israeli Ornithological Center team, together with my good friends and colleagues Jonathan Meyrav, Dan Alon, Meidad Goren, Richard Melzack and Anette Ashton. We promote birding in Israel, and this year the event was amazing. For me personally is was a very special birdfair. First of all, for the first time my family came along with me. My wife and the kids participated in part of the many family activities at the fair most of the time, but it was great to have them around. Second, it is my first fair as a UK resident. Since I moved here almost a year ago I extended my network of friends and colleagues even further, and it was so good to meet up with so many friends. It was especially good to meet Facebook friends in person and create real friendships. Another important factor that made this year's faie special is the main conservation cause - to tackle illegal bird killing around the Mediterranean basin. I was personally involved in the preparation of the recently published BirdLife International report, describing the horrendous slaughter of birds in the region - at least 25 million birds annually! This year we focused our efforts to promote the Champions of the Flyway birdrace, that is part of BirdLife's campaign to stop the killing. 

On friday I participated in the traditional BirdLife reception to all BirdLife partners, held at the RSPB stand. It was a warm and friendly event, and I feel proud to be part of this family. Here are the relatively new BirdLife CEO Patricia Zurita and RSPB director Dr. Mike Clark talking about conservation and friendship:

We had our own event as well. On Saturday we launched Champions of the Flyway 2016, and announced that Birdlife Greece will be the recipients of the funds raised by the teams. So many friends and supported showed up to the event - it was awesome. Last year's Knights of the Flyway, Next Generation Birders, handed their prize, Swarovski SLC 10X42 bins to Birdlife Cyprus, that hopefully will help them with their fieldwork to stop the crazy hunting going on over there.

Personally I took part in many meetings alongside the fair, mainly to try and gain more support for the Champions competition. Hopefully next year's competition will be even greater than previous years, including this bloke who might come over, either in the BTO team or independently. My boys are great fans of Chris Packham, so I took the opportunity to take a family selfie. My boys are in heaven.

This is one of the most impressive events of the fair - the famous mural depicting the beauty of the Mediterranean region and its birds, that are threatened by hunting. Many artists work on this mural, here are Steve Cale and Jackie Garner:

I can't walk more than ten steps at Birdfair without stopping to chat with a friend. It is amazing. The networking is incredible, and the constant talk and interaction with friends and colleagues was quite overwhelming. But in the end lots of laughs and smiles made the effort well worth it:

I will meet many of the friends again in two weeks time at Migfest in Spurn, looking forward to that very much. Birdfair was great but there were not enough birds involved in it, mainly bird talk. On the lake there were Black tern and Great White Egret, and flying around some Yellow Wags, and Red Kites, but that's it more or less. News of an elusive Booted Warbler not far from home got me slightly itchy and twitchy towards the end - hope to connect with it tomorrow.

So till next year, chapeau and many thanks to the organizers, mainly to the legend Tim Appleton. It was a superb event, and i am already looking forward to next year!