Oh I just can't resist. The magic of binoculars. Being a person of poor vision, I find it miraculous that my Zeiss 10 x 42s put the world into clear, essential, pure focus. I, too, forget about sex and money at times like these.

However, the clear, intense focus of good binocs can lead one into uncharted, unexpected, surprising worlds not solely populated by birds and flowers.

I found myself in Agra, central India, one evening, with a few hours to kill. We had already seen the Taj Mahal and several mosques and it was time to look for exotic birds. My hired driver took me to a lovely park near central Agra. The center of the park was open, dotted with many tall trees, while the perimeter was lined with shrubs and bushes. I was busying myself getting a stiff neck looking up for woodpeckers and other new birds while my driver waited anxiously in the car. Nice young men walked by, many hand in hand, greeting me and practicing their English. I was naively impressed by their open friendliness. Females were nowhere to be seen. After a while my stiff neck forced me to scan the lower shrubs in search of rollers, bee eaters and other exciting birds. Scanning these bushes slowly, I was frankly amazed by the manner in which other males took this behavior as an invitation to show their wares, so to speak. Woodpeckers were not the only ones seen that evening. Uneasy at best, I edged back to the car, not knowing (and certainly not wanting to know) what the local mores and practices might be. My driver, normally a non-communicateive type, did roll his eyes. Good time to leave. But , the moral of the story is sometimes those binocs don't take you away from that pesky old world full of temptations and distractions after all.

I did see the Large Goldenbacked Woodpecker, so the evening was not a total loss.

RT Cox
Gillette WY
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20021015/3fd1ba35/attachment.htm