Future Birding Gadgets? (5 Viewers)

[alan_rymer]

Bins with heated barrels for winter birding.

 

[birdboybowley]

Come to think of it a smart phone that has a battery that lasts more than day, with heavy use, and always gets really good 3G reception.

Hear hear...(or is it here here)!!

 

[Farnboro John]

A device that autofocuses your lens in complete darkness so you can take flash photos without using lights.

And all of you that are after NVG technology - its out there and not too expensive, though not to current military specs (so don't believe anything that talks about Gen 2 or Gen 3). Try googling Yukon as a starter. Honestly, people pay £1000 for bins, but balk at £200 for an image intensifier with a near-infra-red torch built in. Excellent for small mammals, badger-watching and owls.

John

 

[jurek]

Did you use it John? I saw somebody who had a binocular - but with no magnification and tiny field of vision, it was useful perhaps only for watching insects crawling on the ground in front of you.

 

[Mysticete]

I think the next new birding tool will be handheld identification and production of Sonograms, in the field. I know there are already some apps that attempt this...

Personally, taking the sonogram approach, I would like a easy to carry bat identification tool, that I could literally point at some flying bats (or in an area of the night sky which might have them), and pop out and ID. I know they have bat detectors, but I have seen less on the ID front here in North America, which has a pretty high diversity of bats.

 

[Brian Bullough]

How about bins with thermal imaging for those poxy skulkers that never show

That would also require a " Thermal Image Field Guide to Poxy Skulkers of .........."
Brian

 

[birdboybowley]

Ha - at least you'd know it was still bloody in there! How many times have you heard "...it just flew into that bush...and definitely hasn't come out of it..." only for the bird to disappear forever!?

 

[flossiepip]

A time machine so you can go back and see all those extinct birds. T he Hui would be top of my list!

 

[Tiraya]

A camera that actually focuses on the bird more than 5% of the time would be high on my list too! (Though most of it is more my "fault" :-O)

 

[Monahawk]

A time machine so you can go back and see all those extinct birds. T he Hui would be top of my list!

Superb idea but sadly impossible. I would love to go back in time to see if those vast miles long, sun blotting flocks of Passenger Pigeons were a phenomenon of reality or myth.

Si.

 

[Chosun Juan]

A time machine so you can go back and see all those extinct birds. T he Hui would be top of my list!

Jeez, how magic would it be to see the Haast's Eagle o

 

[Chosun Juan]

There have been binoculars with an inbuilt camera!..but they have been produced by ''little known'' companies offering limited resolution producing an inferior image.
If Leica, Zeiss or any other ''blue chip'' manufacturer brought out a quality product 8x/10x sporting double digit mp, linked to a large sensor..ie producing HQ shots/1080p Video, enabling the user to ''image'' exactly what they see after manually focusing. I for one would go into debt for this type of kit, as binoculars are much better balanced for usage/and instant focusing than any camera.

I know this is a widespread wish (and I like my convergence as much as the next man)...........but jeez..........I just can't help but wonder how much more electronic bombardment I want my eyeballs under?

Will there come a time soon where humans have evolved to be incapable of perceiving the natural world (or what's left of it), but merely view a poorer digital facsimilie of it???

How then to lift the veil and see between worlds to the truth beyond....... :-C

Chosun :gh:

 

[jurek]

I think the next new birding tool will be handheld identification and production of Sonograms

Sonogram production programs are around! But the idea of automatic bird call identification is knocking around for years and never worked.

Years ago Cornell uni people said they will use some software to ID calls of night migrants from recordings... then was a gadget which supposedly identified 20 common bird songs... never heard about a follow-up.

 

[username]

I know this is a widespread wish (and I like my convergence as much as the next man)...........but jeez..........I just can't help but wonder how much more electronic bombardment I want my eyeballs under?

Will there come a time soon where humans have evolved to be incapable of perceiving the natural world (or what's left of it), but merely view a poorer digital facsimilie of it???

How then to lift the veil and see between worlds to the truth beyond....... :-C

Chosun :gh:

In agreement with you there Chosun...!

ps...how about a gadget that eliminates the dependence and addiction of humans to gadgets... [chuckle]...!

http://username-beast.blogspot.com/

 

[Jos Stratford]

How about bins with thermal imaging for those poxy skulkers that never show

Can't you just take a strimmer into the field with you, cheaper

 

[Farnboro John]

Did you use it John? I saw somebody who had a binocular - but with no magnification and tiny field of vision, it was useful perhaps only for watching insects crawling on the ground in front of you.

I use it all the time for mammals and quite often for owls. With the IR torch on its brilliant for finding either because you get eyeshine through the nightscope.

Mine is only X3 magnification but works perfectly well for scanning around, its quite wide angle.

I've built a gadget to fit it onto the flash shoe of my camera so I can boresight it with the lens, but as explained I still have to conquer autofocus issues in the dark. The only way at the moment is a red-filtered D-cell Maglite but its not completely passive detection and some animals (chiefly predators) won't sit still in it at photo ranges.

The maglite option is the set-up I use for both Dormice and you've seen the sort of pix I get of them.

John

 

[Isurus]

How about all rings having miniature radio frequency identification chips in them - you wouldn't have to catch birds for ringing recoveries just have them fly or hop within a certain distance of a receiver. Reserves (and the home garden birder) could have receivers around their feeders and get a daily feed on all rung birds and it wouldn't even be necessary for birders to see a bird for a reserve to record a weird vagrant.

 

[Steve Babbs]

Personally, taking the sonogram approach, I would like a easy to carry bat identification tool, that I could literally point at some flying bats (or in an area of the night sky which might have them), and pop out and ID. I know they have bat detectors, but I have seen less on the ID front here in North America, which has a pretty high diversity of bats.

Me too. I have a bat detector, and I've used it a few times to find crickets, and I have tried with bats. One day I'll learn, but an app for my phone, that saved me having to do so would be very much appreciated. Especially it covered other countries as well as the UK. I suspect whole world coverage would be beyond a dream.

 

[StokeOwl]

Silent camera shutters.

How about silent bird watchers?

Then again i asked for clever gadgets, not magical ones 8-P

 

[dwatsonbirder]

A small, cheap GPS tracking device which sends signals out at hourly intervals. I would love to see this in the near future, as I am aware of such systems being used on aquatic warblers, unfortunately these cost several thousand pounds. Just image if they cost less than ten pounds and were applied to all those Asiatic accidentals that turn up with some regularity. We would be able to use the data to finally resolve whether any of these birds actually make it back.