• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

What did you see in your binoculars today? (1 Viewer)

Spotted? Where are the spots? ;-)
Seriously, sometimes I am puzzled sometimes by the names given to creatures.
I still can't get over the Ring-necked duck. Show me the ring! Its about as evident as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The white-collared duck, ok, but not the ring-neck.

Here's what I would call a properly spotted bird. Naturally it's name does not include that adjective. These are common around our neck of the woods. The Northern Flicker. Lots of red-shafted, but there are yellow-shafted intergrades to be seen as well.

Shot last weekend, with my 'mini digital spotting scope' the Nikon p-610. I was also carrying a real spotting scope, and used the tripod, with scope locked down to rest my camera on.. Stability and high magnification are co-equal partners in a lot of endeavors, despite Rico's distant, echoing admonishments otherwise.

Off to bird!

-Bill
That's an intergrade.
 
Bill,

We have plenty of yellow-shafted flickers in our PA backyard forest. In Alberta, we've encountered numerous red-shafted flickers but no intergrades. Thanks for the photo! We'll be in Aberta in June and I'll be looking for an intergrade.

John


After looking closer at a lot of the Flickers I've been seeing, I venture to say that many of them are intergrades. Here's another example.

-Bill
 

Attachments

  • vv.flicker.2.02.20.jpg
    vv.flicker.2.02.20.jpg
    205.4 KB · Views: 32
Bill,
Where's the red nape?
https://www.10000birds.com/northern-flicker-intergrade-in-california.htm

We're on the wrong forum but...
John

Hi John,

Yellow shafts, but no red crescent on the nape says intergrade to me, but I could very well be wrong. I've actually seen a fair amount of flickers with the red crescent on the nape in the last month. The message I'm hearing from local birders is simply that there are likely NO pure yellow shafted Flickers in the bay area. Just a lot of intergrades.

Its nice to have a little window of actual bird talk in the bino forum... But I can look elsewhere as well.

-Bill
 
And it is nice to see a bird here and to learn a new kind of bird exists: an Intergrade!

Meanwhile back in the world of binoculars......

Lee
Moderator
 
The mild Wintertime of Ibiza is slowly going away and Spring can already be felt in the fields. Some almond trees are in beautiful white bloom (while some others have already lost their flowers) and the winged Winter visitors will be gone in a few weeks. Extremely humble and common birds of northern lands like robins, wagtails or redstars are true jewels of the Wintertime around here, and we enjoy them briefly, so watching a group of wagtails on a freshly ploughed field (with the characteristic local reddish soil) is a simple yet completely fulfilling experience (surprisingly, there's hardly any corvid here, only the scarce raven. There are no magpies, for example).
Here, the lovely landscape with a lone wagtail as seen with the smartphone camera through the objective of a 7x42 FL.
 

Attachments

  • Wagtail.jpg
    Wagtail.jpg
    90.6 KB · Views: 35
Bill,
Where's the red nape?
https://www.10000birds.com/northern-flicker-intergrade-in-california.htm

We're on the wrong forum but...
John

I want back and studied my photos. There were 3 flickers on that tree. Here is a wider screengrab of the same photo showing 2 of them. Note the yellow shafts, red malar, plus a hint of red on the nape of the upper left bird. Intergrade!

And to swing the rudder back topically, I've taken to carrying an 8x42 SF as of late, because I'm carrying a scope, and I can fairly easily use that bin with one hand, which I could not do with my 10x42 Noctivid, a testament to better ergo design, 8x being steadier than 10, especially with one hand, and a bit less weight.

-Bill
 

Attachments

  • vv.flicker.2.02.20.2.jpg
    vv.flicker.2.02.20.2.jpg
    332.7 KB · Views: 22
Here, the lovely landscape with a lone wagtail as seen with the smartphone camera through the objective of a 7x42 FL.

I note that the tail of that Wag is discreetly hidden behind a convenient dirt clod. Nice photo! Are you using any kind of an adapter for your phone?

-Bill
 
Are you using any kind of an adapter for your phone?
Bill, I do have (and use, and like quite a lot) a cheapo plastic adapter that I bought for 7 $. It is of the kind where the ring that holds the eyecup works also as a "lid" (so to say) and it blocks any light coming from the sides. Previously I had one that was simply a metal structure, but in difficult light situations (with the sun behind, or for night pictures of stars) light would reflect on the eyepiece lens somehow ruining the picture. However, I hardly use the adapter with the binoculars, it's used 95 % of the time with the scope.

For the binoculars I just hold the smartphone against the rubber eyecup (on fully extended position, the taller the eyecup, the better usually), and I'm more than happy with the results for ID or archive purposes (no arty intention whatsoever). Actually, I even record videos of birds in flight or of birds singing, so I can check them later at home. I do this on a daily basis, and with a bit of practice you can hold it surprisingly still. The picture of the wagtail was taken through a 7x42, but even at higher magnifications it works for me. Yesterday I was watching a lovely little egret through the 12x42 Nikon M5 and took some nice pictures of it while it was on a "hunting scout" (see picture attached), you can even see the long nape feathers :)
 

Attachments

  • WhatsApp Image 2020-02-18 at 08.37.50.jpeg
    WhatsApp Image 2020-02-18 at 08.37.50.jpeg
    127.1 KB · Views: 74
I was out watching the beavers again a couple days ago and something unfamiliar flew by way off in the distance. Usually it's red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures in that area. A few minutes later it came back and circled really low overhead for a couple minutes and I realized it was a bald eagle, which is fairly uncommon for the area.
 
Today is the day: the first swallows of the year are already here. A group of barn swallows resting on a wire after their long trip. The icing on the cake, a red-rumped swallow hidden among its relatives :) One of those "wow" sightings.
 
An exciting morning in my backyard - a bird-of-prey, I think a sparrowhawk, swooped down looking for breakfast (but missed). It sat on a pole looking around for just a minute and then left. Needless to say all the usual passerines on my feeders have scattered far and wide.
 
Yesterday, my wife and I hiked along a wooded trail on watershed land that drains towards a reservoir. Spotted Towhees were abundant, singing their one note love song, along with the raucous cries of Steller's and Scrub Jays, Woodpeckers, and the first Orange-crowned Warblers of the season with their tickling, descending call. Nearing the reservoir we came upon a large Eucalyptus tree that held several Great Blue Heron nests, each with parental occupants. (one on the nest, one on a branch below). The nests were substantial affairs, about 40-50 ft. off the ground. No sign of chicks. Perhaps too early. Nearby, in the same clearing, was a pine occupied by 6 Turkey Vultures, warming their wings in the morning sun, another Great Blue Heron, and an Acorn Woodpecker. Those larger birds made that woodpecker look like a sparrow.
 
A beautiful spring day today. I was outside looking at Venus early in the evening, about an hour before sunset, when I noticed movement in the bushes nearby and I spotted a bird I hadn't seen before - a Goldcrest. Quite a nervous little thing, not easy to hold in the view of my 10x42. At first I only saw it for a second, but a bit later it allowed a better look. That golden stripe on its head with two black stripes flanking it was very surprising.

I was happy to also spot the Dunnock I've been following all winter.
 
On our Sunday evening walk, amid other more usual suspects, seventeen Wood Ducks (mostly drakes) near a reedy corner of a large lake where they proceeded to vanish from our viewing angle. Watched a few of them fly in; saw a few instances of chasing(?) activity between them on the water. Quite far away, but their colors were still spectacular in the warm low sunlight, with our 10x32 and 15x56.
 
Yesterday afternoon I watched 2 Crows riding the Thermals through my 10 x 32 , these birds are impressive flyers.

When it got dark I spent about 2 hours looking for UFO's through my 7 x 45 , needless to say I did not see any at all LOL.

Well what else to do during a complete lockdown LOL.

Cheers.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top