Hi Tweets,

Eric Stahlfeld writes:

(snip)
>I am not sure how important weight is. I really do not intend to bird all day
>without every getting a break to set the bins down. Patrick Sullivan's
>message to Tweeters about his trip this past weekend shows how often he
>stopped, which would provide a rest from heavy bins.

Heavy or light bins, arm fatigue eventually robs you of efficient
performance of your glasses, meaning you don't get everything you paid for.

If your telescope is on a tripod, you already have a ready-made binocular
mount. Turn the scope crossways and rest your bins on it. Mike Force taught
me this about fifteen years ago and since then I observe in the field that
he and I *still* seem to be the only people to use this method of resting
our arms and using our bins in a sustained scan. Besides saving you from
fatigue and resulting hand and arm tremor, doing so adds about another
100-200 meters to effective scanning range and allows greater detail
perception, which means you get your full money's-worth out of your bins
whatever their type. If you lack a scope and tripod, but have a birdbook
with you, rest your bins on the upper edge of the book as a kind of
Finn-stick support: even that helps lessen tremor by a significant amount.

(snip)
>I'm not sure how important field of view is, either.

For most coastal stuff---seabirds, shorebirds, raptors, waterfowl--not
terribly; however, when dickie-birding, more so. To see a sparrow which goes
to ground here, mouses several meters through the grass and then hops up
onto a grass-stalk there often needs a wider field of view for tracking. To
generalise, the closer, smaller and more active the bird and the thicker the
cover, the more useful a wider field of view becomes.

>P.S. If anyone hears of Leica, Zeiss, or Swarovski bins being offered at a
>really, really good price, I'm sure Captain's Nautical would appreciate
>hearing about that too because quite a few of their bins walked off one night
>a couple of weekends ago.

Has crime finally come to birding? Well, I wouldn't be too surprised--given
the potential money to made off such a potentially huge market (*twice* as
many wildlife photographers as golfers! more birders than gardeners! a
gazillion more birders than hunters etc etc)--that the wolves haven't
started to look us over as we peacefully graze our yearlists and hotspots.
Matter of time before innocence is lost one way or the other, and I'm not
just talking about sending in a ropy rarity-report or two.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)