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!!