British Decoy and Wildfowl Carvers Association

'Raindrops kept falling on my head'

Mud, mud, glorious mud!

The BDWCA had our usual large stand in the Puffin (Art) Marquee. The weather was, to say the least, inclement - such a difference to last year’s show when we were having a heatwave - and I found myself remembering the chorus to The Hippopotamus Song by Flanders and Swann:-
Mud, mud, glorious mud,
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So follow me, follow,
Down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud!

It may have been very wet, including thunderstorms with hail, but as usual the visitors stayed cheerful and we’re already looking forward to attending the Global Birdfair next year, although we won’t complain if the weather is better!

We have always seen the Birdfair as an excellent opportunity to engage with a large number of people interested in birds and show them the variety of bird carvings created by our members, as you can see in the photos, and we had lots of people visiting the stand who were both amazed and complimentary about the range and standard of carvings. After its success last year, we had set up the stand to include a carving table – many thanks to members Terry, Chris and Alan who took turns to man it – and it got a lot of interest.

Once again David Askew had brought along a variety of moths which he carves from scraps of wood left over from his bird carvings and they were as popular as ever, in fact some visitors are now calling him “the Moth Man”.

As usual we had a bird to raffle, a Robin – kindly provided by David – which was very popular. One of the Birdfair volunteers, Malcolm, drew the winning ticket and as the winner was working on a stand in another marquee David was able to present it to her in person.

Pam