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OpticsBlog – Thoughts and reviews of binoculars, telescopes, scopes, sights, and much more - birdwatching, astronomy, target shooting - pretty much anything related to optics, nature, and life!Friday, July 30, 2010Western skiesMy family members and I spent a pleasant evening on the deck that sits on atop our lodge, here in Deer Valley, watching the sun go down over western skies. Is there anything more spectacular than western skies? As we watched Venus in the west, a Mule Deer doe watched us from the hillside, so I watched her, right back, with my Leica 10x25 BL. After all, we don’t see mulies in Wisconsin and who knows when I will get back out west? Mostly, though, my thoughts turned to astronomy and I couldn’t help but regret that I didn’t try to bring one of my telescopes or, at least, astronomy binoculars, even though I knew that would have been almost mission impossible given all the other gear I brought - you can carry on only so much when flying. At an elevation of over 7000 feet and little in the way of light pollution, I could have given a telescope or my astronomy binoculars a good workout. Hey, there’s a reason most observatories are on the tops of mountains – that thin mountain air makes for great transparency. Tonight, if the skies are favorable, I may just see what my little Leica Ultravid can do the little Leicas can do, just the same. At least I can say I tried. Thursday, July 29, 2010Vacation cameras It’s probably safe to say that more pics are taken, every year, with small digital cameras of the point and shoot variety than all other cameras put together. Yes, nothing beats a point and shoot digital camera for convenience – that’s hardly news to anyone – but as an old camera user it still amazes me just how good they can be when it comes to picture quality. No, I’m not saying these small digital cameras will ever replace DSLRs or my beloved film cameras, but point and shoots can do a remarkable job in the right hands and if you keep your expectations within the range of what digital point and shoot cameras can achieve. These days, for instance, most of the pics I take get emailed or used for my blogs. Even an average point and shoot digital camera offers enough resolution for that kind of use and, because of their size, I always have room to carry one of these cameras. That, in itself, is a big feature in a camera. I debated long and hard before we left on our western trip as to whether I should take the film cameras, but in the end, there just wasn’t room, since we restricted ourselves to carry on bags, only. By the time I added a laptop, two cases of harmonicas, a GPS, my compact binoculars and small digi tripod, there was simply no room for my SLR cameras, but there was room for my little Sony Cybershot. That means I won’t return home without some pics of our western vacation and that is one very big camera feature, indeed. About the pic: Can you see the hawk in the dead tree? Okay, there are some things a digital point and shoot cannot do. Could have used a much bigger lens Wednesday, July 28, 2010Utah birdingThis afternoon, as we stepped out of the car in Park City, Utah, I smelled sagebrush for the first time in about six years and I nearly cried for joy. Hey, and mountains, too. From our window, here at the motel, I can see sagebrush and have even been scanning the hillside for birds with the binoculars. Just like old times. Yeah, it’s great to be back out west, if only for a few short days at my family reunion. As I usually do at these family reunions, I will make some brief escapes from the usual hectic activities that come with having seven siblings and countless cousins, nephews and nieces and check out the local outdoor scene. This is a new part of Utah for me and I am quite eager to see what outdoor gems it contains. A few sessions with the birding binoculars and digital cameras are in order. My family, in fact, expects this sort of thing from me and I wouldn't want to disappoint them. Have to do uphold my rep as the birding, photography, astronomy nut. It's almost a duty. My family knows me well enough to expect these sudden disappearances, but they also know they are followed by equally sudden re-appearances. Should I get some good pics of the piece of Utah, I will publish them in one of my next blogs and hopefully include some western birds seen, as well. Have digital cameras and binoculars, will travel. That’s me. Tuesday, July 27, 2010Beginner telescopesAt one time, I volunteered as an astronomy guide at a local observatory and I can’t say who enjoyed the experience more – me or the folks who I helped look through telescopes and our astronomy binoculars. After all, I love teaching (I am a former science teacher) and I love sharing my love of astronomy with others. My time spent as an astronomy tour guide also reminded me that many, if not most, of the folks out there in the general public have never looked through a telescope or even a binocular. That’s easy to overlook when you use binoculars, spotting scopes and telescopes on a constant basis, but it bears keeping in mind. It’s all too easy for some of us to indulge in too much shop talk and jargon and thus scare a beginner, away, though I would like to think that I have tried to keep things simple and maybe, just maybe, had some part in sparking an interest in astronomy in a child or an adult. When I started my pursuit of astronomy, over forty years, ago, I was basically on my own. I learned the ins and outs of using a telescope, by myself, mostly by trial and error with emphasis on the error. Yes, I made a lot of beginner telescope mistakes, but my passion for being under the night sky with a telescope and all the wonders of the universe trumped all. Yes, I survived that first cheap telescope and equipment and I know others have, as well. I would hate to think, then, that some folks are reluctant to try astronomy when they see how expensive some of the equipment can be. The good news when buying a telescope is that there are some very reasonably priced telescopes and binoculars on the market, these days, that are far superior to what I had as a beginner and, best of all, there is more information on astronomy binoculars and telescopes than ever before for those folks who have questions on telescopes. Click on the above links, for instance, to see some of my articles. No need to fumble in the dark, so to speak, as I did when I started. Monday, July 26, 2010Digital camera escape Spent the weekend, up north at our new home, though it was more work than play with all the remodeling we have been doing. We are replacing an old and smelly carpet with a beautiful tile floor in our basement family room; Bill is laying the tile and I am doing the grout! Okay, I didn’t even know what grout was until I met Bill, but Bill and I believe in doing things, together and no way am I going to be left out when it comes to a project in our new home. As I slaved away on the floor with the grout bucket, though, my thoughts couldn’t help but wander to all the things I will be doing instead of laying grout. I couldn’t help but wonder, for instance, as I splattered more grout in those cracks, what pictures I could be taking with my digital cameras and my film cameras at that very moment; I couldn’t help but wonder what birds I was missing in my birding binoculars; I couldn’t help but wonder what birds I could be seeing in the spotting scope, set up in the yard, just waiting for me; I couldn’t help but wonder what fish I could be catching in the lake. You get the idea. I am definitely not an indoor person. The outdoors always calls, relentlessly and without mercy, especially when it is waiting right outside my door. The birds, chipmunks and squirrels chattering away didn’t help, either. That’s when I told Bill he should take a break. He didn’t buy it. He has inhuman endurance. Okay, I told him, maybe I should wait on the grout until the new section of tiles had the cement dry a bit more. I wouldn’t want to bump any tiles out of place, after all. He bought it. I grabbed the digital camera and made it to the kayak in record time. Friday, July 23, 2010Dark and stormy night  Heading back up north, today, to do more remodeling on the house so it is ready for our final move in a bit over a month. After the heat, humidity and, especially, the severe storms we had, yesterday afternoon and evening, I am more than ready to get out of the city. The cool air of the north country is calling us and we are eager to be on our way. Yesterday’s rain was almost epic in nature. We were out driving, on our way home and got caught in the initial downpour. (Three and one-half inches of rain in thirty minutes rates as a downpour in my book.) If I had had my digital cameras with me, I still wouldn’t have been able to take pics – I was too busy driving and trying to keep the car from being submerged on the flooded streets. When we got home, however, I grabbed my digital cameras and got a few pics. Would have been a great time to have a waterproof digital camera, but I did my best to protect the cameras and kept firing away as I stood in the rain. When the tornado sirens started to blow, I was even tempted to grab my binoculars and search for a funnel, but did the smart thing, instead and took cover. Northern Wisconsin does get tornadoes, though they are not common and that part of the state does get heavy rains, at times, but that kind of downpour is a bit rare, anywhere in the state. Anyway, me, my husband, our dog, my digital cameras and binoculars are heading north to, hopefully, quieter and cooler weather. That's our street or maybe we should call it our river and our friend's truck parked in our river.
Thursday, July 22, 2010Telescope timeOne of the very few disadvantages of being an avid astronomer is that you are a slave to the vagaries of weather; blessed, indeed, are those nights when the skies are dark, clear and seeing conditions favorable for serious work with astronomy binoculars or telescopes. I can attest to the fact that, in some parts of the country these nights can be few and far between when the weather gets stuck in a moisture pattern. We astronomers take what we can get, as always, though I suspect our spouses worry about our sanity when we buy telescopes and telescope accessories and then watch all this gear collect dust, so to speak, as we wait, night after night, for a clear sky. Sometimes you just have to be patient to be an astronomer or, at least that’s what I say in my defense. That’s why I try to make the most of my precious observing time when I have a chance to grab the astronomy binoculars or stick a telescope eyepiece into a focuser. I do this by having an observing plan. In my early days of astronomy, I took this to heart and made written notes about improving my technique and typed up long checklists of objects I “needed” to see. This organized and detailed kind of an observing plan is still a great way for a beginner to learn the basics and I highly recommend it, but, in truth, I rarely write things down, anymore. After forty years of observing and working with my binoculars and telescopes, the night sky is as familiar to me as my own backyard and maybe more so, since I have a long history of moving about the country. I still have a plan, though; I know quite specifically what I want to do at the beginning of an observing session and I always end an observing session with a mental note of what I want to see, next time. After all, I need something to get me though those long dry spells when the clouds move in. Wednesday, July 21, 2010Cameras for waterfalls and fall colorBill and I have been working, feverishly, to get all the remodeling done in our northern Wisconsin home, so that we can be settled in, permanently, come September, in time for the fall color season. Leaves turn color, early, that far north and in some years, it’s over when you turn the calendar page to October. Folks that make the trip north to photograph fall colors need to carefully check local conditions and color reports if they expect their cameras to get a workout. I know, because a girl friend and I used to make a fall trip, up north, every September, along the southern shores of Lake Superior, not far from where Bill and I will be living, come September. It was what we call our “waterfall” trip, since all the rivers that flow into Lake Superior have waterfalls and some are quite spectacular in years when the rivers are running high. We did our best to be there when the colors were at their peak, so that our cameras would get a good workout on both the fall colors and waterfalls. It’s been a few years since we could make the trip, but now that Bill and I will be stationed, up there, so to speak, we plan to make our home the base station and work out to the surrounding area. I am eager to make that trip, again, for many reasons, but one of them is photographic in nature. Last time we made our waterfall trip, we used only digital cameras. We got some decent pics, but with every pic I took with my little Pentax digital camera, I kept thinking how much better I could do with my old film SLRs which I had sold to pay the family bills, many, many years, ago. This year, though, I am back in the film camera business with no less than 4 old film cameras and a camera bag full of old, but excellent, camera lenses. That means no more wading though complex menus to get total control of my camera – my biggest complaint with digital cameras. On my old film cameras, everything is right at my fingertips, right where the controls should be. Taking pics of waterfalls is deliberate work, anyway. There is no need for automatic anything, including autofocus, unless, of course, you are a photographic dummy and don’t know what makes a camera tick. Then, too, who needs to worry about spare batteries and packing a battery charger? The button cell batteries in my old film camera work for years. Come on September. Tuesday, July 20, 2010Telescope performanceA basic axiom for telescope performance is, the larger the telescope, the better the performance in terms of both numbers of objects seen and detail in those objects seen. This is based on the laws of optics – larger lenses transmit more light to the eye and can resolve finer detail. However, it is never quite as simple, when buying a telescope, to buy the largest telescope you can afford. Light pollution throws a wrench in all of this, for instance. It only takes a little urban or suburban glow from lighting at night to seriously reduce performance of any telescope and you can even make a case that light pollution affects larger telescopes more than smaller telescopes, though it is probably safer to say that light pollution reduces the potential, rather than actual, performance of larger telescopes more, compared to small telescopes. In other words, urban dwellers who buy a large telescope may be paying for a lot of performance they may never get to use. The best strategy, so far, for reducing the evils of light pollution, in terms of using telescopes, is to simply drive to a location that offers a darker sky. This can make a tremendous difference in telescope performance, sometimes far beyond what some beginning astronomers might expect. Yes, a small telescope, under a truly dark sky can outperform a very large telescope back in the city when hunting for faint objects. A good strategy, then, is to buy a telescope that is small enough to be easily transported in a vehicle – just a matter of how large a telescope an astronomer wants to handle. If that jumbo dream telescope cannot easily fit in your vehicle, then, it may not be the best vehicle for you. This might be one reason why mid-size, very portable telescopes, such as the Meade ETX-125 and Celestron Nexstar 5SE are so popular. They are small and portable enough to easily load in a car, but still large enough to offer good performance. Monday, July 19, 2010Spotting scope on the lake Most of my life has been spent on the prairie, though I haven’t been there for more than ten years, now. Oh, how I miss the prairie, though, especially the prairie marshes. The sky above a marsh stretches endlessly over a paradise of wildlife. There is no grander place to set up a spotting scope and do some birdwatching or digiscoping or just sit and breathe all that openness. I’m about as far from the prairie, now, as I can get, but I have been blessed with access to something that somewhat parallels a prairie marsh in this part of the country and that is our shallow, weedy north country lake. In fact, it is filled with many of the same species of ducks and song birds and, best of all, I now live on this lake. Just a matter of walking down to the dock, binoculars around my neck, digital cameras in my camera bag and spotting scope and tripod over my shoulder. At the dock, a lawn chair awaits me and, once the spotting scope is ready to go, just a matter of sitting back and watching the show. Next time those Wood Ducks swim by or that Great Blue Heron decides to do some fishing, I will be ready. It’s like going home again to the marsh, but now I have trees for a horizon and maybe, just maybe, a moose or bear to photograph. A girl can hope. Thursday, July 15, 2010Best place to live?A year, ago, before I met my Bill, I was doing research on the best possible location for an outdoors and single gal like me to retire. How hard could it be to find a location that offered truly dark skies for astronomy, top-notch birdwatching, access to great mountain bike trails, wonderful scenery for photography, excellent fishing, canoeing, cross-country skiing, nice folks, some isolation, but not too much, a four seasons climate, low crime rate, low cost of living, access to some wild areas and maybe even some fellow musicians to do some playing? Lastly, might I also find my soul mate? The single life was not for me. I didn’t want much, right? Hmmm. I mostly looked west in my search, since that open country has always been so near to my heart and that’s where I have most used my spotting scopes, telescopes, birding binoculars, astronomy binoculars and all my other optical toys. I was getting impatient, too, to use all these tools to their potential. Not something you can do in the big city, that’s for sure and what’s the point of owning binoculars, telescopes, birding spotting scopes if you can’t use them the way they deserve to be used? Any location outside the big city would do, but out west was foremost on my mind. I also looked north, though, since the north woods are also in my soul; my mother’s family is from northern Minnesota and we spent most of my childhood summers in the north at various lakes. Could I find a location, up north that met all my requirements? I had a whole list of places to investigate, then Bill walked into my life and the list when out the door, or so I thought, at first. Bill had a similar list, so off we go to the north country, after all. What a difference a year can make. Cross a spotting scope with a telescope? What do you get when you cross a spotting scope with a telescope? Actually, that is a something of a trick question, since a spotting scope is a telescope; it’s just a small telescope designed to be used by day, whereas the word telescope is typically reserved for scopes we use at night for astronomy. However, there is no law that says you can’t spotting scopes for at least some astronomy or telescopes for some limited day work, though you always lose something when you try to make one instrument do both jobs. I have used spotting scopes for some astronomy for many, many years. Since spotting scopes are small and they use standard photo tripods, they make a very convenient grab and go telescope. One disadvantage, though, of using spotting scopes for astronomy is their typically usually low magnification – the atmosphere by day simply doesn’t allow the use of the high magnifications seen in astronomy at night. On most spotting scopes, eyepieces are not interchangeable, so that means you are stuck with low magnifications, 60x being a typical maximum. That is a lot of magnification for daytime use, but not much in terms of astronomy. What can you do if you are shopping for an instrument than can be used by day as well as night? There are a limited few spotting scopes that use standard telescope eyepieces. This gives you access to literally hundreds of different telescope eyepieces to crank up the power a bit for astronomy, since telescope eyepieces are fairly standardized. So, to answer my question as to what you get when you cross a telescope with a spotting scope, the answer is a spotting scope that uses telescope eyepieces. These spotting scopes really do make the best dual purpose instruments and they cover a wide range of prices. Some, like the Celestron C90 are very reasonably priced; others, such as the Televue 76 are some of the more expensive spotting scopes you can buy, but second to none in terms of optics and quality. Wednesday, July 14, 2010Bird feeder move What’s the last item I will load in the truck when we make our final trip to our new home, up north? My guess is that it will be the bird feeders and, yes, I am worried what will happen to all the birds that visit our feeders when the feeders are gone. I know, scientifically, that the birds will be just fine; it’s not like birds forget how to forage on their own when the seed runs out. Still, my backyards birds have been such a part of my daily routine that I can’t help but miss them, not to mention worry about them. Will someone else feed them and watch them with binoculars as I have done so faithfully, this last year? Who else in the neighborhood loves birdwatching? Who else will take their pictures with the spotting scope? I’m just an old softie, I know, but darn it all, I feel responsible for them. Of course, it will all balance out when I put up the bird feeders in our new backyard in the north country. My birding binoculars, my spotting scope and my digital cameras will sit, ready to go, just as they have done, here in Milwaukee and I am very excited to see what birds will visit the feeders, up there. Okay, you north country birds, I have been spoiled, so I expect great things. Tuesday, July 13, 2010Small telescopesThis next week is unofficially, “telescope week” for me. Last week, I gave my astronomy binoculars a good workout under those beautiful dark skies over our home in northern Wisconsin. This week, conditions, permitting, it is time to use the telescope and see what it can do. If my little refractor telescope does half as well as I expect, it will be very difficult to return to Milwaukee to finish the job of packing and moving. Ouch. When it comes to telescopes, size (aperture) is the primary factor in performance, but I have always advised my customers to also think in terms of portability if they have to move the telescope a lot and, especially, if they must travel to find a dark sky. The only caveat is to make that small telescope (one, say, under 90 mm in aperture) a quality telescope. A small, but well-made telescope with good optics will always get used, even when you own larger telescopes. That will be the case with my small telescope, even though I will, once again, acquire a much larger telescope. Just nothing so convenient as grabbing a small telescope, mount and tripod with one hand and stepping outside to grab a half hour of astronomy. You don’t do that with large telescopes, obviously and large telescopes also require more setup time. So, what do you do when you only have a few minutes to do some astronomy and use a telescope? You grab the small telescope, of course. Monday, July 12, 2010Digital cameras, canoes, kayaks Canoes and kayaks will take you places no other boat can take you and, in fact, a canoe or kayak can take you places that you won’t see any other way, period. For the photographer, then, these small craft provide great opportunities to get pics land bound photographers and the folks in those big boats can’t get. For sure, I rarely get in one of our canoes or kayaks without digital cameras powered up and ready to go. Image stabilization in digital cameras makes good sharp pics possible in all but the roughest water and is available in even inexpensive digital point and shoot cameras, these days. Check out one of the the Canon Powershots, especially the waterproof Canon Powershot D10 if you are worried about getting your camera wet in a canoe or kayak. This image stabilization, though, is the key and it gives digital cameras a distinct edge over typical film cameras. As much as I love my film cameras, I leave them and tripods back on shore. Thank-you image stabilization. Another great advantage of shooting from a canoe and, especially a kayak, is that right on the water perspective. Because you sit so low to the water in a kayak, you and the camera see things very much the same a duck or other animal on the water sees it. You can sense this in a photograph. The water just seems to go on forever until it meets the horizon. Of course, the best reason to use a canoe or kayak for some digital photography is to be in a canoe or kayak. Is there anything so serene and tranquil as gliding along, slowly on a glass calm north woods lake in the evening? Friday, July 09, 2010Long live small, portable telescopes! North we go, again, this weekend, to our home on the lake. This trip will be mostly about painting and remodeling, but I have sworn an oath to make time for some astronomy, given a favorable moon phase for chasing deep-sky objects. Look out dark skies, here I come and this time I will be carrying my Nikon 10x70 Astroluxe, not some tiny compact binoculars. From now on, either an astronomy binocular or a small telescope or both will come along for a ride when we travel north. Both are good choices when space is limited, as it will be this trip. The Toyota is already packed to the gills and I may have to carry a telescope in my lap. Even our dog, Roscoe, will make the trip. When we first thought about moving north, I began to think I might want to buy a telescope, again, that would give me more potential than my little 80 mm refractor. That means a much larger telescope, of course, and my thoughts turned to something in the neighborhood of ten or twelve inches. Now, I’m glad I didn’t rush into this. I learned, last week, that the best view on our property is from the dock and no way do I want to transport a large telescope up and down fifty yards of rocky, boggy path to the lake to do astronomy. I’ll just keep that 80mm APO refractor busy for now. Long live small, portable telescopes! Thursday, July 08, 2010Point of view for binoculars and telescopes One of the things that has me most excited about our new home in the Rhinelander, Wisconsin area is the opportunity it will provide to finally do some serious, dark sky astronomy, again. I have been without a dark sky for too many years, so this will be like going home after a long absence. However, when it comes to a site for using your telescope or astronomy binocular, there are other things to consider than the sky, though the sky is always the prime ingredient in a good observing site for a telescope or binocular. One of these other ingredients is the view. Our yard in Rhinelander, for instance is not too bad and it offers more of a view of the sky than any of our neighbors yards - most yards in the area are completely surrounded by trees to within a few feet of their houses. Our yard in Rhinelander is also an improvement, in terms of view, over our yard in Milwaukee. However, both yards have a long, long way to go to equal the yards I have enjoyed on the prairies of Nebraska and the Dakotas, where I lived in my youth. Nothing like having a clear view of the horizon on all sides when you are doing astronomy. Can't beat those prairie skies for the view. Not to worry, though. We are not about to start chopping down trees in our new yard, up north, for the sake of astronomy. That would be nuts! Instead, I am going to have Bill improve our dock so I can set up my telescope and look out over the lake on those dark, clear, northern nights.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010Small camera or big camera? “It’s the lens, stupid.” That’s one of the first photography lessons drilled into me by a professional photographer, way back in the pre-autofocus film days, but it is still true, today, in this digital camera age. The camera lens is where it all begins and all the digital processing in the world in sophisticated software programs won’t substitute for a poor camera lens. You gotta have something to work with, as they say. Better to settle for that lower level camera body and put your money into a good lens than sucker for that DSLR body with all the bells and whistles with one of those notoriously poor kit lenses. Definitely a beginner’s mistake. Camera lenses, including digital camera lenses are subject to the same laws of optics as any other optical piece of equipment. Assuming all else is equal, lens size still counts. That’s why that tiny little lens on those little point and shoot digital cameras that you can stick in your pocket will never capture as much detail as a full size lens on a DSLR and it is a mistake to think that megapixel count can substitute for lens size. It’s never that easy or that cheap. Glass costs, but if you want the pics, you gotta have the glass. To be sure, I use a digital point and shoot cameras and love them, too, but when it comes time to make enlargements and print, I go straight to my SLRs or DSLRs with those larger lenses. They are not as easy or convenient to use or carry, especially when you need to add a tripod, but the right tool for the job is still the rule in photography. One camera can never do it all. That’s probably why some us shutterbugs go broke, but what a way to go! About the pic: digital scan of flower taken with Nikon F3 and 55 mm f2.8 macro Tuesday, July 06, 2010Canoeing, again Bill and I finally got his old canoe in the water, over the weekend, up at “our” lake and it didn’t take long for either of us to recognize we haven’t been in a canoe for a very long time. Ouch! We are definitely not in good canoe shape. Didn’t help, either, that the plastic seat webbing on the canoe seats was old and ripped out as soon as we tried to sit on the seats. That meant we both had to assume the kneeling position, much to the objections of our screaming knees. Ah, to be young, again. Still, I was absolutely thrilled to be in a canoe, again and Bill, being Bill, was already making plans to rebuild the seats. He just can’t stand the thought of something not working, properly. That’s my Bill. As we sliced through the water lilies to get out to the main lake, I kept busy with my compact binoculars and my digital cameras; after all, South Pine Lake is ideal for more than just canoeing. Saw many species of water birds and got some nice pics of the lake to start my lake album. There were times, in fact, when I didn’t know whether to grab the camera, the binoculars or paddle. South Pine Lake may only be a few miles outside Rhinelander, but what a secluded gold mine of wildlife and north country scenery it is. Then, too, if there was ever a lake that looked bassier than South Pine, I have yet to see it. Can’t wait to get out the bass rods and hook into some of those Largemouths – after we fix those seats, though. Monday, July 05, 2010Bird watching, northern Wisconsin styleBill and I closed on our new home, up in northern Wisconsin, over the Forth weekend and stayed for the weekend to start the long process of cleaning and moving in. However, it was not all work and no play – I did sneak, away for some birding and I’m here to report that our new home is our little slice of birdwatching heaven. Once, again, carry my Leica Ultravid 10x25BL compact binocular wherever I go, paid off, big time. That was one compact binocular that never left my neck. Not that my current Milwaukee suburban backyard is a slouch when it comes to birding. In fact, it has proven to be a superb suburban backyard birding paradise and I rate it as much better than average for a suburban backyard, since we are across the street from a stretch of Forest Preserve. This has allowed me to pull in birds from the forest that you usually don’t see in a suburban yard. Still, it is a suburban backyard. Our northern Wisconsin home, by contrast, is actually nestled right in the northern coniferous forest and it has plenty of frontage on a lake. No need to attract forest and water birds – they are already right in my backyard. Nothing like waking up in the morning and hearing a Raven’s harsh croak or walking out to the lake to see a hen Wood Duck and her little ones perched on your dock. How many folks can say they have Olive-sided Flycatchers or Wood Thrushes serenade them in the evening while eating dinner? Time to get the bird feeders up and the spotting scope ready to do some digiscoping. This is going to be fun. Friday, July 02, 2010Bears and bird feeders You know you are in the north woods when … Okay, you know you are in the north woods when you have to be alert for bears raiding your bird feeders. According to the guy who sold us our new place, his dogs treed a bear the other day and, earlier in the summer, a 400 pound black bear male was sighted in the neighborhood. So, I guess I will keep the birding binoculars handy, not only to watch birds, but also watch for marauding bears. I’m no newbie at this bear stuff, by the way. I have personally observed a bear in action at a bird feeder perched on a heavy steel pipe. The bird feeder and steel pipe had no chance - not a pretty sight. Nothing against bears, mind you - in fact, I consider it a plus to have them for neighbors - but bears raiding your birdfeeder is on an entirely different scale than squirrels raiding your bird feeders. It's a war you won't win. Oh, yeah, it puts a whole new twist on your birdwatching. Our new place, though, is a gold mine of bird activity. It is nearly seven acres of thick, overgrown north country bog, bush and timber on a lake. I may have to keep binoculars by every window and a spotting scope set up and ready to do some digiscoping in every corner of the property. It’s a challenge, but I’ll do my best. Of course, I still have to plan and schedule for all those dark nights with my astronomy binoculars and telescopes. This retirement stuff is tough! Thursday, July 01, 2010Which binoculars, cameras, telescopes?Off we go, today, to close on our house, up north. All I can say is finally. Seems like I’ve been packing, forever. It’s been going on for so long that seeing empty and packed boxes all over the house seems normal. Our house, here in Milwaukee, is a showpiece for cardboard décor and will probably remain that way until we make our final move sometime in September when Bill retires. . It’s been a struggle to decide how much optics to take with me on this trip, since there will be so little spare time. The digital cameras will go, of course. Need to get lots of pics to make decisions on decorating the new house. The film cameras, though, will stay, here, in Milwaukee, this time. I prefer to take my time and enjoy my film cameras when I shoot film and this trip is going to be all business. Then, too, I prefer to use one of my tripods for my film work and no room for tripods, this trip. The compact binoculars go, for sure. I rarely even make a trip to the grocery store without my compact binoculars. As for the astronomy binoculars or telescopes, not this trip, given the phase of the moon, this week and, besides, the car is full. I’ll bring those on another trip when the sky is more favorable and, for sure, this will be the first of many trips. Got to get back to packing. |
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