Month: December 2006

A few weeks ago my parents-in-law, who have a passing interest in birdwatching, were at Carsington reservoir, which they visit quite often. When they got there they saw a lot of birdwatchers and associated expensive paraphenalia lining the dam. There, putting on a fine show in front of the dam, diving down, carrying out a triple salko, and then finishing with a bit of a song and a dance, was a Great Northern Diver, busy frolicking about in the water, close enough so that a spotting scope was definitely not needed.

Last week, as previously posted, I went along to Draycote Water to play with my new scope. I got some lovely views of grebes and goldeneye, what I didn’t notice was the Great Northern Diver that many members of Warwick Birding appear to have had the pleasure of seeing that day and all weekend. Unfortuately I had chosen that weekend to go and do the obligatory trip up to see my family so that I don’t have to bother at Christmas. Now, I have to go to work, and as it is dark I can’t even go in the evening.

I know that I am not the unluckiest birdwatcher in the world, I have heard plenty of more frustrating tales, but with the Law of Sod operating, do I go to Pitsford Reservoir, Draycote, or stick with the usual favourites this weekend? And, more to the point, will the fog lift soon enough for me to see anything, and late enough for the birds not to have made the effort to fly away before I get there?

Well, I have the scope so I went out to use it. I certainly gave it a good road test. I chose to test it out on the dam at Draycote Water, on a cold, dark, windy winter’s day. Testing conditions for both the scope and me. So off I went to practise focussing, moving the scope and deploying the tripod. It certainly went better than expected. To start with there did not seem to be very much in the way of birdlife to be seen. However, when I started to have a proper look there were quite a few lapwings and cormorants, as well as quite a few great crested and little grebes.

The scope definitely proved to me that the extra money was a good investment. In the poor light conditions I managed to see so much detail, particularly on the goldeneye that were bobbing about further up the dam. I particularly focussed on these because, unlike the little grebes they spent most of the time above the water, rather than waiting until I had just got them in my sites before disappearing under the choppy water.

The next investment has to be an adapter in order to fit a camera to the scope, as testified by my attempts to hold the camera on the end of the scope shown below – please try not to laugh – it was cold and the boat kept moving.

A number of lessons have been learnt – always put the bottom set of tripod legs down first, buy an adapter to attach a camera before attempting to take a photograph, although I can see more detail on the birds on the water I am still rubbish at identifying the small brown birds laughing at me from behind, and, finally, buy some thermals!!

For some time now I have been thinking about buying a spotting scope, partially with the hope of being able to get into digiscoping. I have been thinking about this for about eighteen months now, and the limitations of a pair of binoculars in the world of reservoirs and winter migrants, coupled with the limitations of my memory (I am hoping to be able to photograph any birds that I don’t recognise) finally persuaded me to part with my hard-earned dosh. (Yes, I do believe that it is hard-earned because it is only the thought of being able to afford the finer things and scopes in life that allows me to keep going to work.)

So, I did my research (sort of – I did get very distracted by all of the pictures shown on digiscoping sites) and thought about what I wanted from the scope and prepared to persuade myself that I did not need the top of the range scope. I went along to Focus Optics in Coventry as I had never used a scope before and thought that it might be useful to see how heavy these were and compare the different sizes. I have to say that the staff there were incredibly helpful, and didn’t try to force me down any particular route. However, I have to admit that I came away with the top of the range scope and tripod. Now I will have to justify these with some articles for this blog, and hopefully, some good pictures.

I have now discovered where all the birds are that most people seem to be reporting as missing from their garden – Focus Optics have stolen them all so that customers have something to focus their binoculars and scopes on. Whilst there I saw woodpeckers, chaffinches (far too many to count) bullfinches, pheasants, great tits, long-tailed tits, greenfinches, moorhens and doves – not to mention the squirrels.

To finish a fantastic, if expensive day (I was also tempted into a new bird feeder and some new walking boots), I called in at Brandon Marsh on the way home – only to buy some Christmas cards you understand. Anyway, whilst there I accidently stumbled into one of the hides. I was mainly confronted by an awful lot of water (most of the small islands had disappeared) upon which there were some ducks floating about – the best of which was a male Goldeneye and a couple of females. On the way back to the car I also saw lots of bullfinches, a flock of redpoll (my first ever, I am assuming that they are the common type otherwise they would have been invisible to me) and a small flock of redwing. Hurrah! Although this may seem a little bit of an over reaction for a common migrant I was beginning to think that they were avoiding me. I kept seeing reports of redwings all around, could I find any, could I arse, I had seen more kingfishers this year than redwings! (This is just a comment for my friend Nick who is desperate to see a kingfisher, but they see him coming and scarper.)