Digiscoping brainstorm!

What if, instead of using a spotting scope for digiscoping, you used a monocular? Admittedly, the zoom capabilities would be lessened; for instance, if you used a 10x25 monocular, you wouldn't get the same zoom capacity as if you used a typical zoom setting of between 20 and 30x (the lower end of a spotting scope's ability, as recommended by digiscoping god Mike McDowell). Still, it might be a viable (not to mention low-cost) alternative to the big spotting scopes.

Oh wait... what about mounting to a tripod? Perhaps there is something that could be done to join the monocular--or WAIT! the camera!--to the tripod! Of course!

I love thinking out loud on my bloggy because everyone offers great advice! So please feel free to offer some advice.

The monoculars I'm considering. Note the large eyepiece lens on the cheaper one--critical for alignment of camera lens for digiscoping.

The digiscoping adapter I'm considering.

What do you think?

Adventures in digiscoping: Two flowers vs. a Mountain

I was doing some digiscoping research, reading tips and tricks from various sources, etc. and I was inspired to give digiscoping another go this weekend. It's been a while since I've done any birds with the scope, because I just wasn't getting good results. This is a good representation of a typical d-scoped shot for me:

This was in good light (though the bird was shaded a bit), camera hand-held to scope (still working on a good adapter) on tripod, and I'm standing on the porch shooting through the open window. Decent, but still blurry. And no matter what I do, I can't get improve the vignetting problem! But blurriness is worse to me, so let's press on and ignore the "custom matte" around the photos....

So I read that setting the camera to different modes sometimes works better than just the general "camera" (on a Nikon Coolpix, this means the green camera icon) mode, which was previously about all I'd ever used on birds. When I photographed the moon the last couple of times, however, I tried different modes because it was so dark. Anyway, I read a lot of suggestions to try putting the camera on "macro" (two flowers icon), so I tried that one first:


These shots were taken while I was standing in the yard this morning. While the blurriness is I daresay significantly improved (I was concentrating on holding the camera steady and pressing the shutter slowly and carefully to minimize vibration), you'll note the weird yellow tinge to the shots. Don't know if this was because of the macro mode or the bright sun or what, but I decided to try another suggestion: the mountain icon, or "infinity" mode.

Again, shooting from my position in the yard, I set the camera to the mountain icon and scoped an obliging bunny:


If you look at the large version of that first shot, you can see the bunny's beautiful brown eyes! This isn't tack-sharp or anything, but WOW what an improvement! I was getting pretty excited, so I went back to the robin from two-flowers mode; he was kind enough to wait for me:

How about that!? AND I got my first shot of a singing bird, mouth wide open!

I'm reinvigorated now. In the fight between the two flowers and the mountain, the mountain wins! Apparently, the mountain allows you to focus not just with the camera but with the scope as well--something I'd never even thought of doing that before! It really makes a difference as I am now able to fine-tune the focus with the scope and get a good sharp photo.

Now, back to the vignetting: It's significant, no matter whether I zoom the camera up or not. I've got the scope's eyepiece rubber guard thing folded down, but I think the lens in the Coolpix 4800 is just set back in the camera pretty far. Still, clear photos, even small ones, are a real improvement for me in my quest to learn digiscoping on my rather modest budget. I'll admit I'm a little jealous of people who start out with a couple of thousand dollars' worth of equipment -- high-end Swarovski scope, custom adapter, and high-end camera -- and get crystal-clear d-scoped images right off the bat.

It hasn't been that easy for me. I've had my struggles, first with my attempts to make a homemade scope (remember that!?), then finally getting a lower-end Meade Condor scope and my nice Coolpix 4800 camera. I know the optics on the Condor aren't even close to what I'd get in a Swarovski or a Leica spotting scope, but I just can't see spending a couple grand on that (nor could I afford to!) right now. Maybe one day, when I win the lottery and live a life of bon-bons, servants, and carefree days.... or maybe not. Right now, I'm happy I got d-scoped some good images!

Now I'm going to wrap up the Nibble for his photo shoot in the garden!

Kat digiscopes!

Kat and I were working in the yard--mowing the lawn, finishing planting, cleaning tools, pressure-washing the outhouse to prep it for repainting, and other things--when we saw one, and then two HUGE white birds on the marsh. Two great egrets! I tried to digiscope some shots of one of them in the Heron Tree (its new official name), but I just couldn't get at the right angle. This was my best effort:


After listening to me whine about getting my tripod tomorrow, the passing cloud that obscured the sun momentarily, the wind, the grass tickling my feet, etc., Kat finally just said, "Give me that scope." She walked to one of the fence posts, put the scope (on its little table-top mount) on the post, took the camera, and started to focus the scope! Kat was digiscoping!

Now this is a great advance in our civilization, folks. This is Kat, who doesn't really like birds because
"They're creepy."
"They have beady little eyes that stare at you."
"The little baby birds are ugly."
So for her to first admire the egrets, then start to help me photograph them, well, it's just like one small step for Delia, one giant leap for Kat-kind!

Admittedly, she didn't do too well, but her photos were actually better than anything I got. Here are the best two; she doesn't really use my camera very often, so she didn't understand about getting it to focus, or about zooming for vignetting. And I was NOT about to make any suggestions; she likes to learn things on her own. Her best results:


Not great, admittedly, but wait until we get a tripod! I then explained to her about the auto-focus, the vignetting, the fact that the camera is not optimal for digiscoping because of the external zoom -- she listened to all of it, even! Then my new assistant offered this helpful note:

"Oh! Big white birds! Flying away!"

The digiscoping was over.

We watched for them for about an hour, relaxing in the Adirondack chairs, but those birds could sense when I would turn my camera off to save the battery; that's when they'd make a little circle around what I presume is their nest and then settle back down again, hidden by the marsh grasses. Even Kat said they were just taunting me.

I thought about taking a walk into the marsh, but we had so much to do in the yard; I just didn't want to stop working on such a beautiful day.

Some birding club members are coming out here on Wednesday night to case some locations for the upcoming Birding Cup competition, so I can't wait to tell Roana that in addition to sora, Virginia rail, American bittern, and great blue heron, she might get a great egret! Boy, this marsh just rocks so hard; I love living here!

Digiscoping Realization #423

While looking over my latest bird photos and marvelling at the better focus (even though the lighting was pretty poor), it occurred to me that perhaps I'm asking too much of a digiscoping rig (especially a homemade one like mine) when I try to photograph the herons on their tree out on the marsh.

I haven't measured it, but I'd say the heron tree is about 200+ yards away from the back fenceline. In contrast to this distance, Mrs. Cardinal and the mourning dove in my previous post were at the fenceline while I sat in my Adirondack chair--probably 20 yards away, max.

Might this be the problem?

I googled "digiscoping distance" and read some entries on stevesforum.com about this very subject. It seems I am being a little unrealistic in my expectations. One person who replied said she rarely tries to scope anything over 100 feet away with her 80-90mm objective (mine's an 80mm). So light-gathering is definitely an issue, especially at great distances (perhaps photographing in the afternoon/evening isn't such a good idea!), and I should increase my ISO to 800. Interesting. I'll have to try to make some adjustments in the camera settings.

I don't know whether I'll be photographing today; we're socked in under a solid cotton-batting sky of gray clouds. The weather's turned chilly, with lows last night in the low 50s. Kat noticed that the thermostat read 55 last night and decided we needed to turn on the furnace to warm up the house. In September!

As much as I love cool, crisp autumn days, I just don't know if I'm ready for the cold and the snow this year. I've been enjoying wearing shorts, plus we still have a lot of outdoor work to do. I feel a lot more tired these days, too. Not enough sleep? Too much stress? Trying to learn everything there is to learn in the whole wide world in record time? Who knows. I just know I feel more run-down, and I kind-of dread the thought of holding tight against winter's chill. Seems like just last week, we were putting away sweaters and coats; now it's time to get them out again. In no time at all, we'll be shovelling away the snow, digging out the car, sliding around on slick roads.

It sure was easier in Texas, where you just had to pull out a little jacket and hope it wasn't going to be one of those freak ice-storm years. I've experienced 80-degree Christmas days. Not exactly "Let It Snow!" but then you could still run outside and toss the football around at halftime of the Cowboys game.

What’s the hold-up?

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Why the heck haven’t we had a homemade spotting scope update? I just can’t go this long without hearing the latest chapter in the Scope Saga!” (no relation to the Scopes Monkey Trial)

Here’s the latest: I have just purchased an 8mm focal length RKE eyepiece set and the image-erecting diagonal that will enable me to view everything right-side-up and oriented correctly from left to right. I dropped $46 and change on the diagonal at Orion Telescopes, and $8.50 on the new eyepiece. I sent back my beautiful 70mm X 800mm fl objective lens and have decided to keep the 50mm X 200mm fl one. I’ll have 25X magnification, which I think will be good.

Today I also began my online shopping for a digital camera. Turns out, I’m going to have to buy two. I just heard from the Hen (Kat) that when I buy her a digital camera, I’ll have to ASK PERMISSION to use it. I know you’re now thinking, “Gees, what a hard ass.” Yet, if you lived with me and knew of my obsessive ways with borrowing things from her and then playing with them until they’re broken, you would understand her hesitation to just say, “What’s mine is yours!” No big deal. I’m going to splurge a little early and get a camera (or two) for my birthday (September 15). I’ve found some great camera prices on Overstock.com, of all places. I’m also shopping amazon and other sites. I want to be sure I get the best camera for the best price, so I’m taking it a little more slowly than I did the lens shopping.

The interesting thing is that most of the digiscoping sites I’ve read recommend the Nikon Coolpix of various model numbers – 995, 4500, etc. Nikon doesn’t even make these models anymore. They’ve moved on to fancy letter/number combinations with letters like L (which stands for “lifestyle” according to their web site) and P (“personal”). This is all fine and good for them, but what the heck does “lifestyle” or “personal” mean when it comes to what kind of camera it is? Frustrating. Dumb-down your marketing, Nikon. This “lifestyle” crap isn’t helpful.

Any suggestions on a great new-model camera for digiscoping? I learned what Bill of the Birds uses today on his blog, but that Canon is also an older model. Granted, I can get an older model on Overstock or Amazon, but I just want to be sure I take advantage of any new technology that might enable me to take better pictures even though I’m an idiot!

As you know, this past weekend we went to New York City, and I had Niki and Ian’s digital camera. It was wonderful to take pictures and have them instantly! However, the image screen on the back of their camera, an HP-M415, was kind-of small and I could tell that if I used it for digiscoping, it would be difficult to make sure my bird was in focus. So I want to be sure I have a nice big screen on the back, like some of my fellow tourists did. I did well to hide my envy.

I know you want to see the bird pics from NYC, and here they are!

My first bird photo, taken without benefit of a scope, proper lighting, digital photography experience, or exotic subjects:

Um, yeah. That’s two robins in Battery Park. It was better in person.

Here’s a few sparrows taking a little dip in a puddle in Battery Park. Guess you had to be there.

This is the best bird photo I’ve taken so far! Let’s hear it for some Canada geese who were hanging out in a mall parking garage in Passaic, NJ! (by the way, what’s with the malls being closed on Sunday in Jersey?)

So to review:

Countdown to scope completion: I’ll say seven to ten days, depending on the mail and my free time.

Countdown to camera purchase: Let’s give it 30 days (then it’ll be close to my birthday and I hope I’ll have found the best camera for me).

If only I had one of those little “countdown” programs! I’m sure the excitement would be overwhelming, though.

Dreaming of Digiscoping (or even a camera)

It's official: I've begun my search to find a cheap way to set up a digiscoping rig. Mind you, I have no digital camera, no spotting scope, and no experience with real photography. However, I view these facts as irrelevant. Don't go getting in my way with the facts, people. Mere obstacles have never stopped me for long.

I've visited more digiscoping and photography sites in the last few days than I can remember, but probably the most interesting and promising to a financially challenged person such as myself was http://www.pbase.com/roygoh/homemade_digiscope, in which a homemade spotting scope is constructed from surplus-store lenses and some PVC pipe, all for less than $25. Now THERE'S some ingeniuity!

Now the camera--that's going to be a little more difficult. I would love to fork over a few hundred bucks and get a Nikon CoolPix of some sort, as it seems to be the most used camera among the digiscopers I saw online. But--that will have to wait for some pennies from heaven, I'm afraid.

Meanwhile, I'm checking out the surplus lens web site (www.surplusshack.com), trying to find the appropriate lenses (and to even figure out just what makes a lens appropriate). It's slow going.

Any suggestions out there? Help? I'm poor, I'm completely uneducated about terms like "focal length," and I don't have a camera—but I'm efforting these things as we speak! Any help would be appreciated.

The garden grows!

My grand plan to roto-till and compost my veggie garden this weekend worked, with Nature’s grudging permission. Under a cloudy and sometimes drizzly sky, Kat and I roto-tilled until we could roto-till no more. I would’ve captured this with photos but (a) it didn’t occur to me and (b) I would’ve been too exhausted to even press the shutter. The ground was damp, but not too wet to work. Still, tilling hard ground is difficult, and Kat has a broken finger in a big splint! But my baby worked that roto-tiller until it dropped. And she dropped. And I dropped.

One of my sore arms; my right hand is still so shaky I can barely auto-focus:

Can you see the pain? Look at my blister!


But it was all worth it! Here is the (almost) final result (I still have a lot of seeds to plant):


Kat re-designed my old layout, moving the door and pulling the fence in off the lawn a few feet. To compensate for those lost few feet, we planted the tomatoes, which the bunnies rarely bother, in the bed near the house:

Once the daffodils die out and the toms grow taller, I’m hoping to stake them into some sort of obedience within this smaller space. I don’t know if it will work, but Kat’s confident, so I am too.

The unfenced feet, then, will house Kat’s flowers, two blueberry bushes, a blackberry, a raspberry, and some eggplant, which we’ll train up onto the arch. (I’ll be spraying the little plants with hot-pepper spray, to deter bunnies.)

The blueberry:

That big stick is just a marker; the tiny twig I'm holding is the blueberry plant. Er--it's gonna take a while to get established.
Some flowers:


The ever-growing compost heap, now covered with mushroom compost:

A pretty little bug on a dandy flower:

I love those little curly--I guess they’re stamens?

I hope this year’s garden turns out better than last year’s. Last year, we didn’t roto-till and I didn’t weed. I was very involved in beginning to bird and starting this blog, so I admit I kind-of paid less attention to the garden than I should have. However, I did dig the fence down after several bunny disasters cost me my lettuce and cilantro a few times. Still, it was an untidy place, and the yield was disappointing.

Going back to the archives, I found my second-ever post, entitled My Birdy Thoughts, on this blog:

What I'd like to have happen on this blog at some point:
1. photos of birds
2. a digiscoping camera thingie to take photos of birds
3. my life list
4. someone big-time like Birdchick reading my blog--even once!
5. questions for other beginning birders

I realized all these things have happened, even#4. Birdchick even chose one of Niblet’s disapproving photos for her Disapproving Rabbits book! It’s gratifying to look back and see what I’ve accomplished. My lifelist has practically doubled (which isn’t saying that much, as it’s still fewer than 100 birds), I’ve got a decent beginner’s digiscoping rig (which will be complete once my tripod arrives tomorrow by UPS!), and I’ve certainly posted lots of bird photos and questions for other birders, both beginners and experienced ones. I’m getting a little teary-eyed. . . .

So I’ll leave you with these links to two posts from August 2006, about Niblet’s experience in the weedy garden.
Part 1 and
Part 2

Live-blogging a life-changing event!

My beautiful cellphone--the little one with the earphones next to it

Something very exciting is happening as I type this post. I'm live-blogging this seminal event in my birding life so I can share with you the thrill and the anticipation of what should make me a better birder in the field! Details, you ask? Here they are:

At this very second, I am loading bird songs from the Stokes Eastern birds CDs onto my new Sony Ericcson Walkman 580i cellphone... with the idea that... I will be able to use my phone like a BirdJam!

The third CD's tracks are almost finished copying to my phone's memory chip. I just got the phone a few weeks ago, but I didn't get the extra memory chip until last night, so you can experience right along with me the latest in my long series of hare-brained schemes!

Okay--I've just unplugged the phone from my computer. I will now attempt to access the bird songs through the Walkman player option on the phone.... I pressed the little W button, and here's the menu... Oh wait! I need to put on my little earphone things, so everyone in the cubeys around me remains unaware of this little non-work-related activity....

OH MY GOD I'm listening to the American Bittern!!!!

Okay--I need to calm down! Someone will notice that I look awake and realize I'm NOT doing my work!

Admittedly, there are some drawbacks -- Lang Elliott's voice being the big one. I don't have the BirdJam software which is supposed to remove his voice and organize the tracks and stuff like that. But OMG! I can just start playing the call with the volume on low, then increase it for the actual call! (P.S.--I love Lang Elliott.)

So here's the plan:

1. On break (10:50 a.m. Eastern time), I will take the phone outside with me and Niki (and our coffee), and I'll see just how loud I can play the calls on speaker phone.

2. After work, I'll stand near the back fence at the Marsh House and play the sora call and attempt to get a response from the real birds, who have been calling almost non-stop lately.

3. A bunch of soras will come out, pose for photos, sign a few autographs, and then go on about their sora business!

Oh I'm soooooooo excited I can barely sit still!

MOMENT OF SOBRIETY: If you've been reading this blog since the beginning, you're probably aware that I tend to come up with some VERY ambitious plans and I'm often (quite often) disappointed.

Remember the homemade spotting scope that yielded images that resembled something you'd see on a bad acid trip?

Remember the many attempts at digiscoping with my little Meade Condor scope?

Remember the homemade digiscoping adapter that broke my Nikon CP4800 camera? Let's all bow our heads in a moment of silence for said Nikon camera. Sigh.

But this time it's different! This time, it might actually all work out! I'll come back and update you after my break. Then we'll know whether this crazy little plan has any chance of succeeding.

UPDATE!-Delia 1, Cruel Fate 0! I played the song of a chipping sparrow outside on our walking trail, and who should fly up and sing in response but a chipping sparrow?? IT WORKS! Update later tonight or perhaps tomorrow on how the home birds respond. I can't believe it--it's really working!

Saturday night (moon) fever

I was outside moving the sprinkler around the veggie garden when I looked up and saw this:


I ran inside and grabbed my scope; there's nothing like those times when the moon and a planet--in this case Venus--appear to rise beside one another in the night sky.


These are the best photos I got, both digiscoping through the Mead Condor, now atop the new Slik 540Q-II tripod with microfluid head, and with the camera on zoom. I tried several camera modes while digiscoping--regular, night landscape, macro, and infinity. Sadly, I didn't get the focused view through the camera that I saw through the scope with my eye. The scope performed beautifully, but I think the camera might've had difficulty with the low light.


I did a little reading about the phenomenon of "earthshine," which occurs when you can see the entire moon in a shadowy blue along with the lit part. I absolutely love it when the moon looks like this, and I was thrilled to photograph it.

According to space.com, Leonardo da Vinci is the first person to have recognized this phenomenon. Beautiful. The view through the scope was incredible, too--I saw all the features on the bottom of the crescent moon.

Updates!

One of my worst habits is not making visible and documented follow-up on things, ideas, projects, etc. Instead, I tend to just DO things and then move on without really updating anyone on the status of said things. Needless to say, this trait annoys managers I've worked for....

So I thought I'd give you a few updates to close out and/or give you the status of ongoing Delia birdy stuff:
1. The fake birdjam project: So far, I've been able to get a sora to respond to my phone's playback of sora calls. I haven't had time to go out on the marsh and see if I can draw one out of cover, though; perhaps this weekend, or some evening when it's pouring rain this week.

2. The ping-pong egg: Status: still no ping-pong table, dammit. (This one's for you, Susan and Laura!)

Still looks the same, huh?

3. Digiscoping: nothing to report. I tried an adapter I bought through Cabela's; the adapter worked for the scope, but my current camera (the Kodak Z712-IS) was too big for the platform. I don't think it's a good digiscoping camera. So I tried going back to my old broken Nikon (lens error) and futzing with it, but I was still unable to fix it. If I'm going to digiscope, I'm going to need a smaller point-and-shoot. I may get one at some point, some cheapie one. But it's not a priority.

4. Marriage to The Kat: going swimmingly, thanks!

That's all the old business I can think of.

Really, this whole post was just an excuse to get in a picture of the ping-pong egg.

Lifers, lifers, lifers!

I've been sneaking in tiny snippets of birding while working, going to the grocery store, etc. -- time is just crunched right now, as I try to cram everything into every minute of this spring. I've been lucky enough to happen on some lifebirds during these little sneaky snippets!

A few nights ago, I stopped at a local hotspot near the turf where I was working, and I happened on some real gems. The first thing I saw was a Black-bellied Plover in breeding plumage -- finally! Oh, and I must apologize for the poor photo quality; I'd left my camera at home, so I was digiscoping with my cellphone camera at about 7:30 or so in the evening -- no light!
So cool--I'd only ever seen them in winter garb in Texas!

Then I saw this little guy:Semipalmated Plover! Lifer number 304! What a cute little bird this is. Gotta love those plovers.

Then the other day, as I headed to work again, I left a little early and stopped by a new little conservation area right down the road, the Barrens to Bald Eagle Corridor (aka B2B). I'd heard there were Bobolinks there, and I wanted to see and hear one. I was not disappointed!What an insane little song! And look at all that patterning on the back; it's like herringbone or something. That's number 305, baby!

I also saw and heard tons of Eastern Meadowlarks:
Spring of the year!

Yesterday, I wanted AB to hear the song, so I took her out there, hoping to show her the Bobolink and the Eastern Meadowlarks she'd admired when I showed her my pics from that day. So we get there, and OF COURSE she spots a Bobolink and an Eastern Meadowlark in the same tree, right off the bat, no problem. SOME of us have waited for YEARS to see a Bobolink, but AB gets out of the car and practically trips over one.

But I'm not bitter.

Now it's time for FEEDERFIRSTS!
You'll recall that in our last segment of FeederFirsts, we saw a beautiful male Indigo Bunting that came by to partake of the seed. On Thursday, we had another FeederFirst that really made my day:YES--a few people on the local listserv have been reporting that, for the first time ever, they've had RBGR at their feeders. Glad I could join in the conversation!

I'll leave you with this rather stern look from a Tree Swallow:Ouch.

Around the backyard

I took a walk around the backyard with the camera yesterday to see how things are coming along.

A robin has built a nest in the tamarack, just above the feeder. She used some plastic twine I had out there on the badminton net to make herself a nice home, which makes me feel like I helped. Here's a shot of Mama R, relaxing in her new home:

I don't think we have eggs yet, but I've seen someone I presume to be Mr. R watching over Mama R, so maybe we'll have eggs soon! I also saw an oriole making back-and-forth trips out beyond the marsh and the woods in front of the house. I'm sure there's at least one nesting pair up there.

Several others have made their homes for the season around the yard as well--on the side of the house:

and under the yew tree:


The marsh has greened up beautifully:

We're getting a nice stand of cattails right by the back fence, so I'm hoping for some good ops here:

I snapped this photo of a song sparrow and a female red-winged blackbird having a discussion:


The garden is bursting with green:

and the pears are about the size of a half-dollar coin:


I was hoping the honeysuckle would attract some hummingbirds, but so far I haven't seen even one. But the flowers scent the entire backyard:

Some unknown plants have come up--nature fans, give me a hand:



Yesterday, we shopped at the Centre Hall city-wide yard sale and got this for the backyard:
We've been wanting one of these forever! Now I can satisfy my primitive urges to build fires, something which got me into trouble a few times as a kid....

and this for the inside of the house:
We made our first loaf this morning, an easy whole wheat. FANTASTIC!

and this little bird:

Not quite sure of the ID, but I'm guessing a duckling of some sort? Think I saw one of these in a Bugs Bunny cartoon....

Coming attractions:
Adventures in digiscoping: Two flowers vs. Mountain
Niblet in the garden! (finally)

First bird of 2007

Being a beginning birder (I wonder how long I can consider myself a beginner?) I am only now becoming aware that it's a "thing" to record your first ID'd bird each year. I've seen such entries on Birdchick's blog, BOTB's blog, etc., so I need to add this practice to my birdy ways.

Luckily, I remember what happened when I went outside on Jan 1 to fill my feeders and watch birds. My first bird of 2007 was a downy woodpecker (male), on our tamarack tree, feeding on suet. He ended up coming back several times during the rest of the afternoon, making a complete piggy of himself. (Well, I suppose it could've been several different males, actually.)

Not a bad first bird for 2007.

I have a few bird-related goals for this year, too:
1. Bird more, including taking a vacation to someplace on the coast (East) where I can see some pelagic birds.
2. Keep practicing my digiscoping and photography.
3. Learn to ID at least ten birds I have not yet seen, so that when/if I hear them, I'll know to look for them so I can get more lifebirds--such as

a. scarlet tanager
b. barn owl
c. Cooper's hawk (I've never made a positive ID on one of these)
d. cinnamon teal
e. red-breasted nuthatch
f. wood thrush
g. bobolink
h. horned lark
i. eastern pewee
j. eastern kingbird

The DIY Monster strikes again

Well, folks, I’m at it again – the DIY Monster has bitten me once more. Here’s the deal:
I have been trying to maximize the effectiveness of my modest digiscoping rig of the Nikon CP-4800 and the Meade Condor scope, right? One of the most important things is an adapter that firmly holds the camera to the scope. This is essential to prevent blurriness from hand-shake. I recently digiscoped some photos of a green heron, using the Mountain/infinity setting which helped a lot, but there was still obvious hand-shake (I’d link to that pic, but I can’t find it for some reason—maybe I didn’t post it?).

Anyway, I was sitting here thinking about adapters. I had tried a piece of PVC with some felt inside it to tighten up the grip, but that never really worked, so I checked out some universal adapters online.

Now we all know what happened the last time I tried to do something like this myself; need I remind long-time readers of the homemade spotting scope saga? I would embed a link there, but the saga continued for months—for a few laughs, check out my archives from the beginning of beginningtobird back in July ’06 all the way through November! That’s when I finally broke down and purchased a real (although a bargain one compared to Swarovskys and Leicas and stuff) scope.

Anyway, as I was saying, my last effort was not that successful OR inexpensive, so I determined I would do A LOT of research before spending even a penny on my crazy little plans. So I went to this one site called Photosolve, which is a great place for accessories of all sorts, and found this universal adapter:

But at $104, it’s really out of my current price range. I mean, I’m about to drop a pretty good wad of cash on the Cape May weekend, so I’ve got to watch my pennies. So I continued to look at the other accessories near this one on the web site and saw these:

That’s when the DIY Monster bit me again and I realized that basically, this is a plastic tube of some sort with a rubber sleeve collar tucked inside. Then the screws turn and tighten that rubber sleeve’s grip on whatever is in the tube. Hmm…. THIS COULD WORK!

So I’m going to Lowe’s at some point this week to look for supplies. I figure I have a ton of PVC pipe left over from the homemade scope, so that’s covered. I will go to the plumbing section, then, and look for rubber tubing of some sort. I mean, I can make something like that sleeve in the picture, right? And I can probably find some little screws like the picture, right? Lowe’s has “everything for home improvement,” right? Oh wait—this isn’t home improvement. But still—they should have something. I realize this might seem like industrial espionage—making a generic version of someone else’s idea. Hmm. I kinda feel bad about that aspect of it. What do you think? Should I just go for it?

Whatever happens, I am not even going to breathe a word of this to Kat, though. At this point, in the middle of her three-week-long comps exams, even the mention of these crazy plans would send her right over the edge. She still bristles when I mention the homemade scope fiasco. So mum’s the word, okay?

Today's the day for ol' Cape May!

this photo shamelessly taken by and stolen from Laura at Somewhere in NJ; this is some of us last year at the 2nd Avenue jetty in Cape May. From left to right, Susan in the water, me and Birdchick digiscoping, and Jay Davis from Birdjam looking cold and pensive as he walks down the beach

So I'm squirming in my seat at work, trying not to watch the clock as the day slowly moves on. I'm all packed up and ready to hit the road after a quick gas-up. Last night, gas was down to $2.85, though it may have gone back up for the weekend, as it often does. I sure hope not, because I'll be kicking myself if I have to pay more pennies today because I didn't feel like gassing up last night.

Such are the concerns of today's driver. When I started driving in tenth grade, gas was 79 cents a gallon. What was it was you first started driving?

Tomorrow morning, I'll be birding with Susan Gets Native, Laura H in NJ, KatDoc, Lynne from Hasty Brook, and -- thanks to my high school bud Liz Gordon--her hubby Jeff Gordon! Pretty exciting! I tell you, birding here in PA, usually on my own, is always fun. I get to walk around some of the prettiest woods Nature ever made and see and hear birdy magic all around me. It's the most exciting and yet calming thing, a paradox you fellow birders probably all understand.

But going to these festivals is such a blast; birders from everywhere come together, share their knowledge, joke and laugh and drink and eat, spot and help others spot birds of all sorts, and pretty much just have fun. There's nothing like it. This will be my second Cape May trip, and my third festival overall. I know that once I get there, I won't want to leave.

more silliness from last year, with Laura helping me take my own self-portrait for some weird reason

Meeting people whose blogs I've worshipped from afar is a real charge; birding with them is like... well, let me put it into a literary context. Let's say you've read Shakespeare's plays all your life and you just love him. One day, you find a room in a library you've never visited, and in the room, sitting at a table, is William Shakespeare himself, just hanging out and reading a book. You walk into the room, sit across from him, and talk about books, plays, movies, and what have you.

That's what birding festivals are like for me. I read these people's blogs and admire their photography skills and their birding field craft; I learn about their lives, which are all just as crazy as mine; and I realize how much alike we all are, no matter where we live or what we do. So when we get together, we're already like old friends who've travelled together and hung out at home with crazy kids and pets together, and gone out and birded together. They'll all laugh when they see themselves described in an analogy as the birding equivalents of William Shakespeare, but hey -- they're being modest, just another thing that makes them so cool.

I probably won't get to blog again until next week, so have a good weekend: see some birds, hang out with friends, and read a good book by your favorite author.

House finches galore

I was doing my feederwatch counts for this weekend and for some reason, every house finch in the area decided to hit the platform feeder today. The pine next to the feeder was crowded with mostly female house finches, waiting their turn at the seeds and nuts. Usually, I get about three-four of them, max. Today I saw nine at one time, both in the tree and on the feeder. There were only a couple of males in the bunch; the rest were tiny females.

I tried digiscoping but that little homemade adapter just isn't cutting it. These are the best photos I got--and they're terrible.
Obvious handshake. But the good thing was that I didn't see many finches with conjunctivitis today, at least I don't think so. They look okay to me. Any other opinions, based on this terrible photo?


In the golden light of the fast-setting sun, it was impossible for me to tell what kind of sparrow this is. Help?

Speaking of sun, we had another beautiful day here in Central PA--I think the high was close to 70! Here is a photo of the tamarack, almost bereft of its needles, and the marsh behind it, bathed in the bronze of a setting winter sun:

A not-so-white Christmas for 2006.