bird watching with a telescope?

15 years ago

The people at DH's job are giving him a present for many years of service (there won't be any bonuses this year) and one of the options is a Bushnell variable power compact binocular, power from 7X to 15X. Another option is a 150X150 mm Bushnell refractor telescope with tripod.

We are not especially interested, really, in the Milky Way. Sure, it's beautiful on a frosty winter night. But we're much more interested in seeing and identifying birds from far away. Do you think the telescope is useful for that? Or should we just go for the binocs?

:) Mary

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Comments (6)

chickadeedeedee
15 years ago
Hi Mary.

Hope you and yours have recovered from your awesome home restoration project. :-) We have a very nice Bushnell telescope with various lenses and have tried to do birdwatching with it.

Maybe our scope isn't the right kind but we have never had much success with bird watching. Seems no matter how far off they are ... they are still TOO close! We even tried to watch the ships on Lake Erie on the horizon ... DANG! Still too close!

Pull out a nice set of bins and that's the ticket! I'm *fairly* sure there are scopes specifically designed for birding that get you closer than the normal bins but are not as powerful as a telescope.

I'm sure someone else, maybe Jean, who knows all this optics schtuff can help too but that's been our experience.

3DChick
sleeplessinftwayne
15 years ago
Hey, Mary. That sounds like a nice gift. It is a shame about the bonus though.
If I had such a choice to make, I would go to a store that handles such things and check them out. Sandy
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maryo_nh
Original Author
15 years ago
Heehee, yes, that's what we were afraid of - the "still too close" ! We might be able to count the feathers but what good is it if we can't see the bird...
Yes, we're recovering nicely. And the baby was born two and a half week ago! She is absolutely adorable. Yet another thing going on in life that keeps me away from the dust cloth and the vacuum cleaner! (Yeay!) It's so lovely to be an Oma and Opa (dutch grammy and grampy) again. And this one is so much closer than California!
Sandy, we checked them out online. Easier than going to a store. We were not impressed by the price range, in other words, if we were going to buy one of these ourselves we would spend more. We can't choose something that's not in their fancy folder, and we thing it's an overstock kind of thing. I have my eye on a good looking bird scope, but I don't think it's in the budget for this Christmas...

They also have very nice cutlery. Maybe we'll get that instead and keep our eye on the bird scope instead.

:) Mary
jeanner
15 years ago
I'm guessing you meant 150/50???

Bird scopes are typically smaller magnification but a wider field of view. I think you'd have a hard time keeping the bird in the field of view - it would probably hard to even find the bird!

I won a pair of Vortex 8 X 42 sidewinder binoculars, and although they are not considered "high" end, I was amazed at how much better they were then the minolta and bushnell binoculars that we already had. Although they have a smaller magnification than our other binoculars, they are much brighter and clearer and it makes a big difference.

I'd go for the cutlery!

Congratulations OMA!!
maryo_nh
Original Author
15 years ago
Jeanne, I don't know, this is what DH read out to me from the folder. And thanks for the info, girls. We already have two nice nocs, one even a lightweight. It's a Nikon 8X40. Same DH got it as the "thanks for your many, many years of service" gift from Digital. Funny - I think of it as the "new" nocs... Of course, when I say lightweight, that's very relative. It's a whole lot lighter than the other one though. So we decided on the cutlery.

I'll check out the Vortex, just for fun. Of course, I'm still hoping to get my hands on the semi-prof zoom for my camera... They never put those in with the overstock gifts, do they...

:) Mary
sheepco
15 years ago
Congrats on the new grandbaby!!