Optics versus mirage

[Fernando np]

Last Saturday I went to have a look at an area, very familiar for me. The landscape is tipical of the high plains, round 900m over sea level, in Central Spain. Absolutely flat apart the valleys digged for creeks and seasonal streams. During the morning I walked the most interesting part of the valley. Among other things, there was two Eagle Owl nest in 600 metres. One with eggs and the other with two big chickens occupied with the rest of one raven, a difficult prey in my opinion. Round 2pm I had come back to my car over the valley in the farming plains, here. I had carried some food and my idea was to spend the rest of the day looking for Great Bustards, (Otis tarda) with are common. That was the theory, in the plains temperature has gone up 20ºC and the soil looks and mirage factory with the rate of production of Shenzen. The worst were the wheat crops, the darkest. Although the landscape is almost empty over the land level, probably a man would had been invisible at 500 meters even with the aid, really poor of the 8.5X42EL and the Dyascope85. This schyzofrenic situation is common in this flat areas cut by valleys. You can use high power, even 100X, looking towards the opposite slope and as you turn to the flat at the same distance, the scope hardly ever improves the detail of binoculars in the full range of power, even 20X looks "dirty".
So the maxim is "mirage wins optics"