But I was musing about how birding and optics have changed. But now
I am thinking maybe I should go back bare basics. Just use good old
eyes and go closer to see birds! Or look for those birds that are
visible! Do we really need to spend so much of money to see birds
that far away? Anyway I thought I will share this with others and
see what others think.
Hi Meena,
If your competitive urges can be squelched, and you're not feeling
left out of the high-definition telescopic fun, you can certainly go
back to birding without top optics. It should offer some interesting
stalking challenges (though you wouldn't practice at Knox-Marcellus),
and I'm sure you could approach the whole thing as a kind of special
training. I've heard that at a certain point in Ski Rescue training
they take away your poles, and you're sent out day after day to
traverse extremely rugged terrain with just the skis (and a pack on
your back, of course).
-Geo
On Aug 29, 2010, at 11:38 AM, Meena Haribal wrote:
Hi all,
Today morning from 5 to 5.40 am I listened to migrant birds and
recorded some of the calls. Based on the calls and the
spectrogram, there were several groups of VEERIES that flew
overhead. There were also some ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAKS and at least
one WOOD THRUSH. I also heard something like clicking of bills,
could have been a cuckoo, but did chance to record so cannot confirm.
Local Great Horned Owl between 5.10 5.20 hooted several times.
There at least six species of night insects all occupied different
frequency levels in the spectrogram. In one species, two or three
insects were calling and initially one would start and then second
would join in and after few seconds the sounds were matched and
sang as one insect but with increased volume! When I was watching
the spectrogram at real time I could see how the frequencies joined
and separated in real time.
About 17 years ago I bought Ziess 10x42 (before that I used Nikon
7X25 and previous to that an 8X32 which had double image, though my
brain after some days of use corrected them to a single image) and
went to Stewart park hoping that I would be able to see all the
birds now better from any distance. Scope was not known to people
in India then. I watched the lake and found no birds. Then Kevin
McGowan drove in and set up his scope and declared he seeing all
three species of Scoters. I was little disappointed that my
binoculars were no good to see that far. He let me peek through his
scope and I did see all three species of Scoters. Then my goal was
to get a scope, which I managed to get one and when I spent evening
at May’s point watching shore birds, I used to be frustrated with
distant birds that other people could pick up with their scope.
Yesterday birds were something like 400 m to 1000 m away from
observation site (I actually checked using google distance
calculator) and everyone is watching Phalaropes, Buff Breasted
Sandpiper and I barely could see them in my scope. Again Kevin
McGowan mentioned, that with his old scope, which was similar to my
current he could not see birds so well, but with current Swaroski
he can see things much better. Oh well, but = since last two years
I have been thinking I need to get better optics, but recently they
seem to have become so very expensive and beyond my reach. I have
been digging in my yard to see if someone has buried any treasure,
but so far have found none L
But I was musing about how birding and optics have changed. But now
I am thinking maybe I should go back bare basics. Just use good old
eyes and go closer to see birds! Or look for those birds that are
visible! Do we really need to spend so much of money to see birds
that far away? Anyway I thought I will share this with others and
see what others think.
Yesterday, on the way back from an errand in Rochester at the
junction of 318 and 414, I saw a huge flock of BROWN-HEAED
COWBIRDS. There may have been more than 1000+ birds and flock was
almost pure cowbirds only.
Also this did not make it to Cayugabirds. To add to Dave Nutter’s
list of shorebirds at Knox Marcellus, later in the evening while
searching for Buff-Breasted, Mike Tetlow found a Golden Plover from
East Road. Viewing was much better from East Road at this time, I
could actually see RED-NECKED PHALAROPES as red-necked and not just
phalaropes, with the same scope. There were also 7 SANDHILL CRANES
in the marsh.
Meena
Meena Haribal
Ithaca NY
http://haribal.org/
http://picasaweb.google.com/ithmoths
http://picasaweb.google.com/mharibal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91426...@n00/
Geo Kloppel
Bowmaker Restorer
227 Tupper Road
Spencer NY 14883
607 564 7026
g...@cornell.edu
geoklop...@gmail.com
--
Cayugabirds-L List Info:
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME
