KorHaan
Well-known member
Well,
Carrying the 18x50's last weekend on a well known birders site let me experience a social aspect; other birders carrying scopes+tripods ignored me. In my scopecarrying days I'd be frequently asked " Anything interesting about? ", but seemingly the lack of true twitchers' gear automatically ranks me as a common birder now, in their eyes. Not that I care much. I politely ask whether there's good birds around as I did before.
The answers are shorter, I noticed, even blunt sometimes.
Now I've never been much of a twitcher anyway, and I've never become part of the incrowd, but still it strikes me as odd that scope people don't talk to bins people.
The Long-Billed Dowitcher was still there, showing magnificently while foraging; my second record only, reasonably close this time. Since I was being ignored I could find it all by myself, that was a joyful experience. And much more rewarding than being told where the bird is, even before you've started looking for it.
Later in the afternoon I climbed the three story hide that is newly established overlooking the marshlands; a small party of birders some distance away looking through scopes muttered excited phrases so I asked in a most polite way what they were looking at. " Red-Breasted Goose " was the downright blunt answer. OK, I started looking more closely among the thousands of Barnacle Geese, elbows leaning comfortably on the ledge and IS engaged. Apparently the RBG did not show because I could hear the scopies giving each other clues like " It's in a small ditch now", "You can only see its head", "I lost it" and "It's behind a small growth of grass, oops, now it's gone again".
I kept looking patiently, and hey, there it was! Walking in front of the Barnacles, quite some distance away, but I could see it clearly through my 18x50's.
On the way back to the parking lot I managed to ID a Goshawk in a tree almost half a kilometer away. Unfortunately the White-Tailed Eagles did not show but from the vantage point of the hide I had been able to locate their nest, a huge platform hidden half in the trees. Even the mast with the webcam on top I could see clearly, several meters from the nest it stood out from the trees.
Next spring I'll know where to look for the eagles.
Ronald
Carrying the 18x50's last weekend on a well known birders site let me experience a social aspect; other birders carrying scopes+tripods ignored me. In my scopecarrying days I'd be frequently asked " Anything interesting about? ", but seemingly the lack of true twitchers' gear automatically ranks me as a common birder now, in their eyes. Not that I care much. I politely ask whether there's good birds around as I did before.
The answers are shorter, I noticed, even blunt sometimes.
Now I've never been much of a twitcher anyway, and I've never become part of the incrowd, but still it strikes me as odd that scope people don't talk to bins people.
The Long-Billed Dowitcher was still there, showing magnificently while foraging; my second record only, reasonably close this time. Since I was being ignored I could find it all by myself, that was a joyful experience. And much more rewarding than being told where the bird is, even before you've started looking for it.
Later in the afternoon I climbed the three story hide that is newly established overlooking the marshlands; a small party of birders some distance away looking through scopes muttered excited phrases so I asked in a most polite way what they were looking at. " Red-Breasted Goose " was the downright blunt answer. OK, I started looking more closely among the thousands of Barnacle Geese, elbows leaning comfortably on the ledge and IS engaged. Apparently the RBG did not show because I could hear the scopies giving each other clues like " It's in a small ditch now", "You can only see its head", "I lost it" and "It's behind a small growth of grass, oops, now it's gone again".
I kept looking patiently, and hey, there it was! Walking in front of the Barnacles, quite some distance away, but I could see it clearly through my 18x50's.
On the way back to the parking lot I managed to ID a Goshawk in a tree almost half a kilometer away. Unfortunately the White-Tailed Eagles did not show but from the vantage point of the hide I had been able to locate their nest, a huge platform hidden half in the trees. Even the mast with the webcam on top I could see clearly, several meters from the nest it stood out from the trees.
Next spring I'll know where to look for the eagles.
Ronald