My Scope: Boon and Bane

I have a scope for looking at birds.
My scope and I share some wonderful birding memories and have gone united through the rotten and the glory.
For this I love it dearly, yet it sometimes appears to be one of my most bizarre birding obstacles.
Why?

Because it keeps me from digiscoping.

You see, back in the late 1990s, my good old original scope - my first scope ever - broke down and died. I was a birder without a scope and thus as helpless as a fish on dry land without a bicycle.
Luckily, these were my days in Africa, and a friend from Germany came to visit me in Namibia for a little birding trip of 5 weeks, which was to take us from central Namibia (the Brandberg being our northern-most destination) all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope and back.
As we were going in my private, personal, wonderful Toyota Hilux, there was no need and cost for car rental, and to show his gratitude materialistically, he decided to help me out of my scopeless misery by bringing with him and giving me as a gift an old scope he got from a friend who didn't need it anymore, which will bring this awfully long sentence to an end and we can all take a moment to rest.


Okay. So he brought this scope along, which was an old Asiola that had been manufactured in the German Democratic Republic, likely sometime during the 1960s, making it older than even myself.
However, a free scope is a scope and is better than no scope.
I was very happy to receive it.

Here you can see the scope during a recent heavy duty mission, scanning the fields south of Leimen for anything that might (still) live.

Here is the proof of it being from the GDR (in German: DDR), and that means it's old. However, you can also see who made it:




Carl Zeiss Jena.
Yes, folks, I own a Zeiss scope.

And frankly, those lenses made by Carl Zeiss Jena (the East German branch during the times of there being two Germanies) were back then and still are today amazing!

Seriously, they still rival the best modern lenses. I have frequently compared the sharpness of my scope to other, more modern scopes and have found that only the high-end brands like Swarovski, modern Zeiss, and Leica can match the old Carl Zeiss Jena lenses. Other brands found in the middle section of the price and quality range - like Optolyth - don't stand a fraction of a chance.

Sounds good?
Well, it is!
However, my trusty old Asiola has one major disadvantage: its teensy tiny diametre of the eye piece. Look at it, it is pathetic.



Not only does this mean I had to get used to (and train my eyes for) handling and looking through this scope.
[Whenever other birders with modern scopes look through it, they are downright appalled - until I will describe subtle features on a distant bird that they can't even see. I mean the bird, not to mention said features.]
It also means that it is nearly impossible to line up that eye piece with a digital camera for digiscoping. The field of view is just way too small.
This here is a rather fine example of the best I can do at middle range (the starling was around 50 m away). At long range, there is no reason for even bothering to consider digiscoping.

And you see, this is my dilemma, my scope bane:
As a birder, I long for a scope that will allow for digiscoping. I sometimes feel like being stuck and lost in the 20th century and would consider this - apart from a notorious lack of time - to be my biggest birding obstacle.
However, having such a nice and brilliant scope, I would not be able to settle for a medium-priced, medium-quality scope. I would only accept to swap my scope for a modern Swaro.
And as a family man, that's just way beyond my wildest financial dreams.

So I am stuck.
I really need to find next week's winning lottery ticket.
Maybe I'll scope it out?

The cast in alphabetical order

Starling - Sturnus vulgaris - Star [Starling - the German word "star" does not mean what it means in English, with a star as in "star dust" being called "Stern" in German, yet I suspect that possibly the German "Star" could have its origin in the bird's tiny white "stars" on a black, nightly sky (rest of the bird's plumage). However, I don't know.]

Suicidal Kitteh

.

... thinks life is pain

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, John James Audubon!

And ... "La Forest"?
Who knew?!

Mystery Turtles on Birder Hyde

I have found two released (former) pet turtles here in Germany yesterday, and have no idea what species they both belong to (two different species). My guess is that they are from North America, so any herper reading this might be interested in following this link and leaving a comment or two.

A short Appreciation of the Eurasian Magpie

I recently saw a stunning image of a Eurasian Magpie on the Internet (but sadly forgot to memorize or save the link), and the title of the image was something like

Eurasian Magpie - the Northern Hemisphere's Bird of Paradise

I couldn't agree more.

The Magpie is a common breeder throughout Germany, but is mostly confined to settlements. It is rather unusual to find a breeding pair out in the fields or forest edges, and I actually cannot recall even finding a single nest in the countryside - or rather couldn't recall until recently.

Within the cities, Magpies prefer nesting in high trees and the main factor influencing their breeding sites seems to be the height of the tree (the higher the merrier), not the species, degree of disturbance (by city noise, traffic, etc.), and also not the location (in gardens, alleys, etc.).

In Leimen, all things birds & birding are different, of course.

There are barely any high trees within the city limits (well, legally it's a city, but really it is not), and as a consequence, Magpies are a comparatively scarce sight.

However, and quite surprisingly so, there are quite a few Magpie pairs breeding within the roughly 1 km² of open fields and hedgerows to the south of Leimen (commonly known as the Boredom Flats and faaaamous for being the birding haunts of yours truly), and there it is one of the most conspicuous bird species.

Well, the latter sentence might better be re-phrased: There it is one of the only - few - bird species to occur.

The lack of competition is likely what had me find a whole new appreciation of the Magpie, but this is not undeserving. It is indeed one of the most striking species in Europe (or wherever it roams), and a species often neglected by birders for lack of scarcity. This is a sorry fate it shares with the Eurasian Starling, the Mallard and the House Sparrow, amongst others. But this post is dedicated to the Magpie, and thus without further ado, here are a few images taken during my recent stroller expeditions.

I hope you do enjoy them as much as I enjoy seeing Magpies. I know - I need a better camera.

Mission Accomplished

Two years and four months after the start of the project I can officially and loudly exclaim in pride that the task is achieved, the mission is accomplished and my son is now officially a
BIRDER!

Well, I had suspected it for quite a while before the last weekend, and there were hints and hopes in his behaviour - like the intent listening to a Blackbird in song or the pointing out of crows - but the last days finally yielded the definite proof after I conducted a little field experiment.

We had just started out on our usual stroller tour with the aim to squeeze at least some common migrants out of the area known as the Boredom Flats south of Leimen (possibly more my intention than my son's) and to run around as much as possible, throw as many stones in as many puddles as possible with the largest possible splash, and find the steepest slope to negotiate with a training bike - repeatedly (possibly more my son's than my ideals of a good Sunday walk) .
Anyway, whatever our respective intentions might have been, we suddenly spotted these two birds in someone's front yard, both not more than 5 metres away from us:
To the left a fine male Eurasian Blackbird (called "Amsel" = Ouzle in German), and to the right a Wood Pigeon (called Ringeltaube = Ringed Pigeon in German).

This, I decided as I immediately recognized the scientific potential of the situation, was going to be the test set-up to see if he had actually learned by heart any of the bird species's names I had told him over the last few months.

So, here is the course of the experiment:

Father: "Where is the pigeon?"
Son: [points to the right] "There!"

Father: "Where is the Blackbird?"
Son: [points to the left] "There!"

Father: "Where is the pigeon?"
Son: [points to the right] "There!"

Father: "Where is the pigeon?"
Son: [points to the right] "There!"

Father: "Where is the Blackbird?"
Son: [points to the left] "There!"

etc.

Notice my cunning approach as I didn't ask alternating but irregularly, and he still got it right each time.

Now, the pigeon is not a specific name, it denominates a whole group of birds. This is something he knew and did for a long time, e. g. duckies, birdies, chickens, etc.
But the Eurasian Blackbird is a specific name for a species and one species only. And by pointing it out correctly time and time again, he identified the bird on a species level, and I would say the first identification of a bird is what clearly marks him as a definite BIRDER.

I should not forget to note that he has been pointing out "Amseln" (Eurasian Blackbirds) for many months now but all these situations included only this one species, so it wasn't clear if he had actually understood that I meant the black hop-arounds or if he just pointed out the next best bird he saw after my asking him. This time, however, the results were clear and definitive.

Can you spell P-R-I-D-E !??

Well ... Nate, and Corey, and Laurent, and Patrick.
Let's see what you've got.


The cast in alphabetical order
Eurasian Blackbird - Turdus merula - Amsel [Ouzle]
Wood Pigeon - Columba palumbus - Ringeltaube [Ringed Dove]

Springtime - Flingtime

Yes, I have done it, I can't deny: I have betrayed you.
I have blogged away from my blog, strayed away from familiar ground built on trust and loyalty, and gone to the meadows on the other side of the fence (where the grass is invariably greener).

Go here to see what I have done and had to say.