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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

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  1. John Cantelo

    Why are there so few x9 binoculars?

    While 7x binoculars have a small (but significant) following, the market is saturated with 8x and 10x instruments. Accordingly, it's always seemed odd to me that 9x binoculars are something of a rarity (although I know that there are some). A 9x35/36 instrument is surely a happy compromise but...
  2. John Cantelo

    Kite Optics - good service

    Excellent service from Kite Optics. With my 10x42 Swaro NLs away for repair (!) I'm using my old 8x30 Kite Lynx. I know there's been some debate about them on BF previously but for what it's worth when I bought them I thought that they were marginally better optically than other such models at a...
  3. John Cantelo

    Birding Bulgaria - Two weeks in the Balkans

    I've been visiting SW Europe (more specifically Cadiz Province) for years for my fix of continental birding but editing the "Crossbill Guide to the Rhodope Mountains" (i.e. Bulgaria) made me realise how many European lifers awaited me in the east (plus as many 21st century ticks). So in late...
  4. John Cantelo

    Princeton Guide to North American Birds

    Rumours about this guide illustrated by Ian Lewington have been around for so long (20 years?) that I was beginning to think that it was an urban myth. It certainly rivals Beaman & Madge's 'Handbook of Bird Identification" for length of gestation. However, I've read via a post on FB that...
  5. John Cantelo

    Changing Status of Firecrest in UK

    Way back in the late 60s I was taken to a hush-hush ultra-secret site in the New Forest where Firecrests had established a small colony. Back in the 80s (I think) having moved to Kent I was told in confidence that Firecrest were now breeding in the county & taken to the site. Fast forward to...
  6. John Cantelo

    Your most unlikely birding experience

    Over the weekend a good friend persuaded me to join him in an attempt to see all three Hume's Warblers currently wintering in east Kent (Dover, Sandgate & Elmstone). Happily, we were successful in what in any other year would have been an impossible dream - perhaps we were the first people in...
  7. John Cantelo

    Where in the world? - buildings & scenery in the Collins 3rd Edition

    A bit of fun ... the 2nd edition of the Collins Guide had by my count 4 illustrations that included drawings of buildings (plus a couple showing chimney stacks alone). Of these only one is readily identifiable which is the sketch of the Giralda of Seville Cathedral with Lesser Kestrels buzzing...
  8. John Cantelo

    SatNav - What style of co-ordinates to use for a site guide?

    After many suggestions that I should do so, I'm contemplating adding GPS co-ordinates to my birding site guide to Cadiz Province. It's a daunting task as I'll probably have to copy & paste details of 500-600 locations. Unfortunately, I've never had a SatNav so, whilst I have some idea how to...
  9. John Cantelo

    Proposed new reservoir Broad Oak (Kent)

    I've lived in Canterbury for over 40 years & every few years the project to build a reservoir NE of the city at Broad Oak resurfaces. If plans had gone ahead in the 1970s then it would have been part of the local birding scene for decades. With such a history I'm not convinced that it'll...
  10. John Cantelo

    Birding Cadiz (& nearby)

    With the autumnal birding season in the southwest corner of Spain - Cadiz Province - rapidly approaching I think it is opportune to share some of the information gleaned there in my first spring visit post-Covid in April/May 2022. Although birders understandably congregate along the Straits...
  11. John Cantelo

    Spanish Breeding Birds Atlas III - now online

    Although I'm enough of a Luddite to want it in book form, It's great news that the third Spanish Bird Atlas is now online and free to access. I've scarcely had time to look at it but from what I've seen it seems (as one would expect) a very authoritative and useful reference. One advantage of...
  12. John Cantelo

    Sound Approach Morocco - problem with USB

    I'm currently reading this excellent book but when I slot the supplied USB into my computer nothing whatsoever happens. No box or instructions appears and the screen remains unchanged whichever USB slot I use. Yet my other USBs work fine in all of them. Anyone else having a problem?
  13. John Cantelo

    Great-crested Grebe - unseasonal breeding.

    When I raised my binoculars to look at a smaller grebe next to a distant Great-crested at Fordwich (Kent) this morning (31/01/22) I was hoping for a Red-necked but what I didn't expect to see was a young Great-crested Grebe! A further scan found two adults attending a total of four youngsters...
  14. John Cantelo

    Where are the Goldcrests?

    Ever since I started birdwatching the best part of six decades ago the mass influx of Goldcrests on the coast has been a regular feature of autumn. As far as I can make out this has been an unbroken thread of autumnal birding back into the Victorian period. Victorians even called them...
  15. John Cantelo

    Odd Sulid off Kent 18/10

    I've just been sent two blurry enlarged images of a bird seen off the Kent coast on 18th October. I know little else about it although I'm told that the bird was fishing and resting fairly close offshore. They're rather poor quality shots but I'd be interested to hear what folks make of them...
  16. John Cantelo

    40+ White Storks Kent

    I was chuffed to find a White Stork passing Bockhill Kent this AM (probably the bird seen on nearby Worth Marshes) as it makes a "double" for me this year as I found Black Stork at Westebere (nr Canterbury) this spring. However, I've been upstaged by a flock of 45 late this afternoon over...
  17. John Cantelo

    Reaching the end of my tether .... Swaro NLs

    Whilst I've always used a rainguard with my binoculars until getting a pair of NLs I've never used objective covers. To be honest, I largely did so with the NLs because having fitted the tethered caps on my binoculars I struggled to get them off. However, although the NLs have well-recessed...
  18. John Cantelo

    Dunnock - a genetic Trinity?

    It seems that the humble Dunnock may not be one not one species but three. In a paper worthy of Trinitarian theologians, scientists have concluded that differences in the DNA are mirrored by "robust differences" in plumage and song between the Iberian, Caucasian and nominate races of Dunnock...
  19. John Cantelo

    Britain's Insects (WildGuides) by Paul Brock

    Another interesting volume from WildGuides has now arrived in bookshops. My knowledge of insects is slight but when I browsed a copy yesterday in my local Waterstone's I thought it rather impressive and a tempting buy (£25) even for an ignoramus like me. What do experts here think? Here's the...
  20. John Cantelo

    Plain Swift mainland Portugal

    A tweet by Magnus Robb (see below) reveals that Plain Swift (30!) have been reported from Porto by Paulo Belo, This is an extraordinary range extension and must open the possibility that they may be found elsewhere in Portugal and quite possibly Iberia and beyond. The account describes the...
  21. John Cantelo

    Power company sued over BoP deaths (Spain)

    Spanish power company Endesa is being sued (see here) for its alleged failure to comply with laws preventing high bird of prey death tolls. Not before time as this scandal has been brewing for years.
  22. John Cantelo

    5 km challenge - foot slogging birding from home at a time of Covid

    Like many at this time, I've been birding on a strictly local basis and, stricter than some, I have done so entirely on foot. I originally set my limit as a 5-mile radius (as the crow flies) from my urban home but have switched to focus on 5 km to make it more of a challenge to reach 100 (and...
  23. John Cantelo

    Extinct Goose from Egypt ..... or not?

    What do people make of claims that a famous Egyptian depiction of geese actually shows an extinct species rather than Red-breasted Goose as usually supposed (see here and here )? The claim comes from the author of a new book "A guide to Extinct Animals of Ancient Egypt" with a cover that...
  24. John Cantelo

    Flocking Grey Wagtails!

    We're all used to Pied/White and Yellow Wagtails knocking around in groups but, family parties aside, it's not something that I've ever associated with Grey Wagtails. I imagine that this probably reflects their typically linear habitat along rivers. However, I was surprised last week to find...
  25. John Cantelo

    European Breeding Bird Atlas 2

    My copy of this monumental book (in every sense of the word) arrived this morning the day after publication (unlike 'All the Birds of the World' for which I had to wait for almost two weeks!). It is such an important work that I feel it deserves a thread of its own. My initial impressions are...
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