Derek the Birdwatcher

Derek; I forgot to mention on the other thread (due to my own monkey mind), welcome back from Vacation. My brother from Seattle was in Kansas for a week, and I took the week off from work myself.

Here in Kansas, we have a huge population of Hawks; huge in both numbers and size of Bird (absolutely enormous size). I have an interest in "shooting", i.e. getting some great pictures of these Birds (I dont "hunt" or kill anything in nature for sport; I'm against anything like that , AND, if I want meat for food, I go to the supermarket )

Im ignorant of how real-life "Birders" go about this sort of thing.

Any pointers?

Hi Matt,
Is that handsome chap you BTW?

Yep, some think birding and bird photography is a sublimated hunting instinct! I think it may be just an emulation of Adam naming the animals.


I'll start simple Matt and you or A.N.Other can ask questions as when they arise.

i) know your quarry. This starts by having just the basics: A pair of binoculars and a field guide.

Bins: You may have a pair?
A good pair of 8x32 or 10x40's will do. The first figure is the magnification ...don't go for a big mag..10x is plenty. The last figure is the objective size anything over 42+ is quite heavy. Mine are 10x42 Leica Ultravids and are very good but one should pick up a decent pair of other maker bins at a fraction of the cost of Ultravids.

A good Field guide to North American Birds is the, National Geographic Field Guide to North American Birds and is very reasonably priced. It is one I took to NA with me but I have several...the Sibley one is excellent.

I'll post more on photography next.

atb
Derek

Thanks for the response Derek, thats good info, and I will check it out.

As for the avatar, thats my favorite TV character from MASH, Frank Burns. He's a total moron, but extremely funny. .


I DO have some binocs, but I will need to verify the specs on them when I get home. I happened to win them in a trivia contest at a Corporate event. All those years of watching Star Trek finally paid off. .

I already have a few decent field guides (Ive always loved birds), Natl. Geo & Audobon, to name a few. Its on my list to go down to the local Nature Center and have a chat with those guys about this, so I can find out exactly what kind of birds Im looking at. There are a few good sites on this specific to Kansas as well. Again, When I get home I will post them.

The Hawks Im referring to are amazing, and they are EVERYWHERE. They even perch on the Highway Lamposts right in the middle of Wichita (the town I live in, pop. 350k). Ive seen them capture rabbits, snakes, mice, and other smaller birds, namely blackbirds (Kansas is plauged with those). Comming home from my last Sales call, about 1-1/2 hour, 90 mile trip home, I counted 12 Hawks perched on lamposts or fences, and those are only the ones I saw. These plains are chalked full of them, and I thinnk it would be so awesome just to start walking into a field, find a little cover, and stake the place out, looking for these birds.

Go here for starters:

http://www.gpnc.org/raptors.htm

I think this is the variety I see the most:

http://www.gpnc.org/hawkrt.htm

Hi Matt,
Yep, The Red-tailed Hawk was common when I visited the States. They are in the Buteo (called Buzzards rather than Hawks here) family. We have Buteo Buteo..the Common Buzzard nesting near the house.

"Bird watchers" just like watching Birds.
"Birders" search out and find the unusual and rare.
"Twitchers" mainly pursue other peoples rarity finds.
I class myself as a Birder who occasionally "twitches" and often Bird watches in my garden.


There are basically three approaches with equipment to getting bird photographs:

i) Digiscoping....used by Birders a lot...a telescope and camera combination...usually an angled spotting scope plus a 'bog standard' digital camera.

My young friends, Craig and Tristan, are local masters at this.
Though,Tris also uses a digital SLR. They are big twitchers! although they may deny it! Some birders regard twitching all the time as not quite decent!

http://boat33.webs.com/

www.compactwildlife.co.uk/

ii) Superzoom digital cameras with longish focal lengths. I have a Panasonic superzoom DMC FZ18 plus a 1.7 teleconverter. For the opportunist bird photographer. It is about getting a record, perhaps of a rarity.


iii) Digital SLR plus telephoto lens and teleconverter...a very expensive hobby.

For the really keen some form of concealment is used..Birders tend to use field craft.

When I photograph birds I use the first two methods but prefer enjoying the moment to getting an image.

D---

Those sites are AWESOME!!! Fantastic pics...perfect, perfect, perfect stuff.

I will check out those 'digiscopes'...they look pretty sweet.




Over here, "buzzards" are Turkey Vultures that eat dead stuff. You can always tell when something has died, as the 'buzzards' start circling overhead. These Hawks, as far as Ive seen, eat live stuff. I think it would be cool to find a "spot" on a plot of land and start making a record of thier activities. That would be my dream vacation at this point.

Ive read that 'Birders' are an 'interesting', peculiar, competitive-proper, bunch. I think My Uncles FIL is a 'Birder' in Minnesota, Rochester area. He's an 'interesting' fellow (retired from IBM).

I'll start checking out the "gear" to see whats available, and, I'll start looking at 'google-earth' (or some other such thing) and think about where I could go do this....awesome stuff..

Hi Matt,
Most birders already have telescopes. Marjorie and I have three between us. It is relatively easy in those circumstances to hook up a 3x or 4X mag low priced digital camera and get super images.

With a spotting scope on 20x and the camera on 4x the magnification is 80x. It brings stuff up close but a good steady tripod is necessary.

He is an Arctic Tern I digiscoped on 80x mag in Northumberland.

The Arctic Tern has one of the longest migrations, going to and from the high Arctic to South Polar waters.

Little bird, big impact!

It seems that there is hi-tech in birdwatching, Derek. How on earth do the telescope and camera work together to multiply their zoom factors, if that's the right word?

Hi Brendan,
A good question, Brendan
Actually it is simply multiplication. The normal zoom lens stays in the camera and it is zoomed in to x4.


Intuitively if the camera was zoomed out to, say x1 and the scope was on 20x, the magnification of the camera/scope would be 20x.

Hence, if the camera is zoomed to 4x, the size of the image is four diameters larger..therefore with the magnification of the scope at 20x, we have an 80x image on the camera sensor/screen.

If A=20 or 1xA=20 4xA=80

Try holding a digital camera up to the eye piece of a pair of binoculars.

There are complications--video cameras cannot be linked up to bins very well, they vignette quite a lot and also ordinary digital cameras have to be zoomed up to 3 or 4 times to stop vignetting.
It doesn't work very well with super zoom cameras.

brendan wrote:

Little bird, big impact!

It seems that there is hi-tech in birdwatching, Derek. How on earth do the telescope and camera work together to multiply their zoom factors, if that's the right word?

Derek wrote:

Hi Brendan,
A good question, Brendan
Actually it is simply multiplication. The normal zoom lens stays in the camera and it is zoomed out to x4.


Intuitively if the camera was zoomed out to, say x1 and the scope was on 20x, the magnification of the camera/scope would be 20x.

Hence, if the camera is zoomed to 4x, the size of the image is four diameters larger..therefore with the magnification of the scope at 20x, we have an 80x image on the camera sensor/screen.

If A=20 or 1xA=20 4xA=80

Try holding a digital camera up to the eye piece of a pair of binoculars.

There are complication--video cameras cannot be linked up to bins very well, they vignette quite a lot and also ordinary digital cameras have to be zoomed up to 3 or 4 times to stop vignetting.
It doesn't work very well with super zoom cameras.

brendan wrote:

Little bird, big impact!

It seems that there is hi-tech in birdwatching, Derek. How on earth do the telescope and camera work together to multiply their zoom factors, if that's the right word?

Hi Derek,

So the two are aligned to work together then. I can easily see how a zoomed out camera could be put up to a pair of binoculars manually to take a shot,but I'll bet it's knacky! But is there some kind of cable connection between the the camera and telescope or do you just 'take your best shot' at it, so to speak, like with the binoculars? Gosh, I hope the question makes sense.

Absolutely makes sense, Brendan.
Every question in a new field is an intelligent question.. you will realize that more than I as a teacher.

It can be done by holding the camera and binoculars together. But, if a telescope say, is on a tripod, a simple connecting adapter physically connecting the two will help a lot. Some adapters are elaborate and cost over hundred pounds. Mine was made out of shed down pipe and produced by yours truly. All I needed was the connecting ring (screwed to camera) from Nikon..just a few pounds

Then its is a case of focusing the camera (to just before you press the shutter) then focusing the scope and only then pressing the shutter.. Of course its best to not move the camera/scope when one presses the shutter. BSS can help.

I sometimes set the shutter speed on the camera, but most think aperture priority is best. I got good results of a distant small wading bird the other day with aperture priority. It was not visible to the naked eye.
regards
Derek

Hi Brendan,
Here one of the pics of the the Little Ringed Plover that I took the other day which could not be seen with the naked eye:

Hi Derek,

Ah yes, life is for learning! I had this notion that somehow or other the telescope was feeding the zoomed image into the camera (through the likes of a Firewire cable) and then the camera in turn zoomed the image again. Nonetheless, it is a technique that makes birding that bit more interesting - not just finding a great shot but setting things up to do it. I see you are even making your own accessories to get the two pieces aligned and get that perfect picture! And those pictures really are terrific!

On the camera side of things, I have a little digital camera. It has so many options for such a small thing, and a manual that might best be learned in evening classes. I’ve yet to find a situation where the AUTO wasn’t better than my own choice. I was intrigued by the fact that the bird in the picture above couldn’t be seen without the best setting.

Regards,
Brendan.

Those pics are remarkabkle Derek.

Im afraid Im going to have to temporarily shelve my plans for a full court press into the world of Bird-photography. "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans..."---J.Lennon, 1980.

If I can find a digiscope on the cheap, I'll go for it and make time to go "Hawking".

Until then, I will be enjoying your great pics and experiences right along with you, my friend.

Matt

Hi Matt,
When I get some time I'll post some pics of the arrangement of my gear.

Perhaps you can pick up a second hand spotting telescope....if you need any advice just e-mail me.
It needs to be an angled scope (best for digiscoping) rather than straight through. Scopes in the US are not as expensive as in the UK..We pay in pounds what you pay in dollars.

Telescopes really enhance the birding experience even without using them for photography.

Propmin wrote:

Those pics are remarkabkle Derek.

Im afraid Im going to have to temporarily shelve my plans for a full court press into the world of Bird-photography. "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans..."---J.Lennon, 1980.

If I can find a digiscope on the cheap, I'll go for it and make time to go "Hawking".

Until then, I will be enjoying your great pics and experiences right along with you, my friend.

Matt

Sorry, Brendan, nothing that complicated!

No it not the setting Brendan....the settings were to give the best picture and can be use for all digiscoping.

The bird was on an island in a small lake and it is a very small, almost sparrow sized wading bird with cryptic plumage that merges into the stones and plants. I needed to use my bins to find it! Even at 80x much of the resulting picture was clipped off.

brendan wrote:

Hi Derek,

Ah yes, life is for learning! I had this notion that somehow or other the telescope was feeding the zoomed image into the camera (through the likes of a Firewire cable) and then the camera in turn zoomed the image again. Nonetheless, it is a technique that makes birding that bit more interesting - not just finding a great shot but setting things up to do it. I see you are even making your own accessories to get the two pieces aligned and get that perfect picture! And those pictures really are terrific!

On the camera side of things, I have a little digital camera. It has so many options for such a small thing, and a manual that might best be learned in evening classes. I’ve yet to find a situation where the AUTO wasn’t better than my own choice. I was intrigued by the fact that the bird in the picture above couldn’t be seen without the best setting.

Regards,
Brendan.

Hi Matt and all,
To the birder in the UK, weather and satellite data is important. The Dundee based information is quite good, certainly visually.
I am a member of this site.

http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/

regards
Derek

Hi Derek.
Given the choices on your list I'm a 'watcher' - I don't have to go anywhere to find the birds, they come to me! Living in the country is a boon, of course.

We have a variety of hawks in this area, and also bald eagles. They like to perch in very tall dead trees like the one we used to have not 1/8 mile from the house, on our property - but unfortunately that tree came down in a storm 2 years ago. I was very sad, because I was ecstatic to see one perched there, the highest vantage point in the area, on many occasions from my kitchen window.

My most exciting discovery was a cuckoo who'd temporarily perched in the black walnut in our yard about 3 years ago. I heard an unusual call and searched the branches until I spotted the unusual bird making it - I recognized it at once, but was still unsure. I dashed inside for my bird guide, afraid the whole time he would be gone by the time I returned - but he stayed in the tree for quite a while and I'd correctly identified him after all!

I guess my Mom passed on the love of bird watching to me - we had a lovely oriole family raise chicks in their unique nest in an old cottonwood in our yard when I was very young - and of course the purple martins that came every year to the huge martin house my dad had erected. They taught their young to fly from the telephone lines that crossed over the yard and I was hooked on the fascination of them at a very young age! I have her old Audubon guide, but my favorite is the Natn'l Geographic one - I keep my 'life list' in that one.

I recently bought a digital camera/binocular - a cheap one, but I've yet to learn to use it. Maybe later this fall when the goldfinches turn bright again and the cardinals and bluejays are flocking to my feeders. I'd sure love to get some pics of those beautiful cedar waxwings when they come to raid the redtwig dogwood berries from the bushes in our yard - but they come in a flock and strip the berries so quickly - very efficient I'd say. I've only ever seen one singular bird in the yard - but even that was a thrill!

I planted a row of highbush cranberries(NOT good for human consumption, no matter what they say - tried to make jelly from them but couldn't get past the dirty sock smell!) - and the birds eat from them all winter and finish them off in spring before the new blossoms come on.

I'll bet there are many different and unusual birds to see in the UK - even your robins are quite different from ours.

I LOVE the birdies - maybe it's linked to my life-long desire to fly? Lol - NOT in a plane. Was so looking forward to the jet-packs those futerist scientists had promised us in the mid 20th century - this IS the future they looked toward, never it became a reality and I'm crushed!

Peace!

Hi Brendan,
It is difficult in the city, but for those that can find the place and the time it is very therapeutic watching wildlife.
Regards
Derek

Hi Willa,
You sound to be in good spot and have a great garden for watching birds.
I have seen some of the birds you mentioned on visits to the States but not your cuckoos...Was it a yellow-billed? Our Cuckoo is a different bird and sings its name.... onomatopoetically.

We have a particularly good garden and have a longish garden list, for inland UK.

The birds at present are feeding up to move south as the nights are getting colder. There was a frost last night in Scotland. I'll post some pictures when I get round to it.

Peace to you too, Peacebaby.
Derek

peacebaby wrote:

Hi Derek.
Given the choices on your list I'm a 'watcher' - I don't have to go anywhere to find the birds, they come to me! Living in the country is a boon, of course.

We have a variety of hawks in this area, and also bald eagles. They like to perch in very tall dead trees like the one we used to have not 1/8 mile from the house, on our property - but unfortunately that tree came down in a storm 2 years ago. I was very sad, because I was ecstatic to see one perched there, the highest vantage point in the area, on many occasions from my kitchen window.

My most exciting discovery was a cuckoo who'd temporarily perched in the black walnut in our yard about 3 years ago. I heard an unusual call and searched the branches until I spotted the unusual bird making it - I recognized it at once, but was still unsure. I dashed inside for my bird guide, afraid the whole time he would be gone by the time I returned - but he stayed in the tree for quite a while and I'd correctly identified him after all!

I guess my Mom passed on the love of bird watching to me - we had a lovely oriole family raise chicks in their unique nest in an old cottonwood in our yard when I was very young - and of course the purple martins that came every year to the huge martin house my dad had erected. They taught their young to fly from the telephone lines that crossed over the yard and I was hooked on the fascination of them at a very young age! I have her old Audubon guide, but my favorite is the Natn'l Geographic one - I keep my 'life list' in that one.

I recently bought a digital camera/binocular - a cheap one, but I've yet to learn to use it. Maybe later this fall when the goldfinches turn bright again and the cardinals and bluejays are flocking to my feeders. I'd sure love to get some pics of those beautiful cedar waxwings when they come to raid the redtwig dogwood berries from the bushes in our yard - but they come in a flock and strip the berries so quickly - very efficient I'd say. I've only ever seen one singular bird in the yard - but even that was a thrill!

I planted a row of highbush cranberries(NOT good for human consumption, no matter what they say - tried to make jelly from them but couldn't get past the dirty sock smell!) - and the birds eat from them all winter and finish them off in spring before the new blossoms come on.

I'll bet there are many different and unusual birds to see in the UK - even your robins are quite different from ours.

I LOVE the birdies - maybe it's linked to my life-long desire to fly? Lol - NOT in a plane. Was so looking forward to the jet-packs those futerist scientists had promised us in the mid 20th century - this IS the future they looked toward, never it became a reality and I'm crushed!

Peace!