IT'S THURSDAY, I MUST BE IN...RUTLAND

Biiiiiiiirrrdfaiiiiiiiiiiirrr!!!!!!!

Yes! I finally get a chance to reference my panyero Harvey Birdman in the blog, as some members of "Friends Philippines", the LLDD-Hyphen-L and moi recently joined the world's largest birdwatching fair in beautiful, beautiful Rutland. Our participation at the fair was important because -- unlike diving where the Philippines is already a...ahem...big fish -- birdwatching in the country is just starting to...er...take flight.

There was tenuous word/bird play all over the place, so don't judge me

IN A RUTLAND

Rutland is about two hours drive north of London and the fair was held in the Rutland Water Nature Preserve, home to over 20,000 waterfowl. Rutland was also the setting of the "Rutland Weekend Television" comedy-sketch show of Monty Python's Eric Idle, so you know we're on sacred ground here.

PUGAD PINOY

Our group was lucky to book a cute small cottage to serve as our jump-off nest for the duration of the fair. The cottage's neighborhood was charming and picturesque, albeit remote, devoid of wifi/cellphones and a muddy walk away from the fairgrounds. But, hey, if you want to go to the "Glastonbury of Birdfairs", you suck it up and do what you gotta do.

(oh who am I kidding - the place was perfect. And paki-batukan ako if I ever talk of Glasto or its festivalistas again)

SPECIES OF EXHIBITORS

Among those sighted:

Literati Autographis

Who knew that authors of birdwatching books were so revered and popular they could hold hours-long book signings and required extra personnel to control their groupies!

"flockies"?

Artistes Ironix

This specie was surprisingly shy, prohibiting any photos inside its tent. Rest assured, some of the works on display were as kick-awesome as "Three Wolf Moon"

Charitix Collectica

The fair had a substantial gathering of conservation, animal rights, environment, education and other advocacy groups looking to raise awareness and funds. Name any charity, and you'd find them at the fair.

When I say any charity, I mean any charity

Optica Zoom Maximus (100x)

You know how with the recent onset of affordable SLR's, everyone has one and thinks that makes them a stud photographer? Ha! They'd shrivel in their flickr accounts if they saw the size and cost of the bad-ass lenses the real professionals were pimping.

Ever the eagle-eye, the LLDD-Hyphen-L walked right past the plus-sized lenses (or as she called them, the "Overcompensators") and headed straight for the ones made by Swarovski

Countrix Exhibitaurus

The bulk of the fair was made up of destination exhibits - countries or regions that were promoting themselves as ultimate birdwatching paradises. Some things you'd notice though about the country booths: 1) strangely, several big countries had little or zero presence at the birdfair; in fact, there was no correlation between a country's size and the size/slickness of it's exhibit (on the contrary, there were several we-know-to-be-rich countries whose booths were tucked-away in some remote corner of the fair, took up the space of an office cubicle, and had displays that just consisted of bird pictures printed by some dude from his PC); 3) two words: Endemic envy.

For all the fierce competition for birdwatchers' attention, the Philippine booth still found a way to...ahem...soar. First and foremost, we had over 600 species and over 200 endemics to promote - faaaaaar more than most other countries. I know this from my extensive review of the subject prior to the Birdfair.

And from constantly looking behind me and reading the text of our big-ass display.

The Philippine booth also had several nice touches that added to its popularity. It was, for instance, bright, centrally-located, and had a wide open space in front that made it easy to see and irresistible to photograph.

uuuuuy, si LLDD-Hyphen-L, kunyari di napapansin yung camera

We also had tons of cool material to hand out -- we gave everything from Philippine birdwatching guides to notebooks to postcard bundles to colored maps to CDs to glossy tour brochures.

endemically hot LLDD-Hyphen-L not included

Then we had a gorgeous looking video on Philippine birdwatching that we ran continuously on a laptop in front of the booth (surprisingly, very few other exhibitors had any video displays). Thing was, the DVD that we had for some reason had no "repeat/loop" feature -- so when I said we played it continuously, I meant I had to run back to the laptop every 3:58 and click "play"

Exactly like having to press the button on "Lost"!

But the unexpected promotional stars of the show were the Philippine straw hats. They were nice and pretty of course, but they were also quite simple, just casually strewn across the booth as accents, and bore the ribbon "Dive Philippines." At a birdwatching fair.

If anyone asked, we just replied "um, biodiversity?"

Environmental genre mix-up aside, the hats were a huge hit. It didn't take long before you could see hats with the Philippines' name everywhere around the fair: in the roving food cart, on the road leading back to town, even inside other country booths -- worn by the other country exhibitors! Advantage: us.

The funny thing was, we weren't even handing the hats away; people were coming into the booth and asking for them. This led to some great hat request lines from small kids (in sweetest voice: "Please sir, can I have one for my little sister? Pleeeeaaaase."); ladies (in most determined voice: "I saw other ladies around the fair wearing these hats. I MUST HAVE ONE!"); and my personal favorite, husbands (in most stressed voice: "My wife sent me. What do I need to do to get a hat?")

You might say, the hats capped the Philippines' success at the Birdfair. (Yes, admit it, you would say that). Indeed, if the measure of a birdwatching booth is not just the quality of its product but also the awesomeness of its headgear, then the Philippines was Rutland's most memorable and came away from the Birdfair totally unmatche -

Oh, well played sirs. Well played.