Lisa, thanks. I agree. We haven't seen snakey since the day I posted this. I have no problem encouraging him to wind around my walking stick, then carry him out to the deeper woods about 5 acres away. The babies fledged this morning! All five are now out of the nest, happened for four between 9 & 10am, and the fifth one flew about 11:30am. So far you're right - when we saw last they were all up in low trees near their little enclave of nest-box & "worm-hut" (plexi hanging dome). Mama is still providing worms, and we'll continue to do so, but we're gonna back down to twice a day. Next task is to clean the box, and keep an eye out for snakey. Neighbors said today that the neighborhood red fox has at least one kit, and other neighbors say they've seen a bobcat (!!!). TONS of bird activity in the yard - today was a fun day. Having fun, but keeping our eye out for danger. Thanks for all good advice. - Les.

Do not be too quick to dismiss WalMart. Out of curiosity I just went to their website and input the word "Binoculars" in their search bar and boy was I surprised at what I found. I knew going in that Walmart has a very good sporting goods selection and serious hunters are very discriminating about their field optics, but I was not prepared for what I found. I had expected to find moderately priced mid range binoculars from companies such as Tasco or Focal, although in retrospect I think "Focal" is a proprietary trade name associated with K-mart. What I was not expecting to find was binoculars from top world class optical manufactures like Nikon, Canon, Pentax and Olympus, who are primarily known as professional photographic optics manufactures and Bushnell, Leopold, and Steiner who manufacture world class telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes and rifle & pistol sighting scopes. While I found prices ranging from $27 to over $1200 In my opinion there are a number of items listed in the $50 to $100 range that would well meet the needs of an avid birdwatcher for years to come. In my previous post I discussed the general construction of binoculars but there are a couple more features that I failed to mention. ZOOM - You will see some binoculars that are listed as zoom lenses by example, they may say something like 6-10x. I am sure that zoom lenses are desirable to some people, but in my experience you would probably always use them at the maximum magnification anyway so the zoom feature is moot. In addition, in order to achieve the zoom function they often have to add additional optical elements, which adds weight and reduces the light gathering ability resulting in a slightly darker image. COATED OPTICS-Generally coated lenses are only found on higher class optics but they offer many advantages. In its simplest form they apply a coating that reduces UV (Ultraviolet light). A UV coating does not generally effect the image quality but by reducing the amount of UV light that passes through the lens it will greatly reduce eye fatigue. They also apply coatings to reduce internal light flare, chromatic aberrations and aspherical aberrations. These coatings help maintain edge sharpness and color sharpness in the image and in my opinion they should be considered a very desirable feature.

Binoculars are not a standard across-the-board fit for all people. It's very important that you choose them according to your own criteria. My first suggestion is if you are a bird watcher, you want a pair designed to work as well as possible in low light. That has been my biggest frustration over the years, because many species will be most active foraging around dusk and dawn, and nothing is worse than seeing something with a different silhouette sitting on a tree branch and it's merely a dark blob through the lenses. LOL. The second criteria is how serious a birder you are. Ye, by all means spend as much as you feel comfortable with to get the best set you can for your level of use. You also want to consider if you will be using them from a set location, or having to pack them and want them more portable. I own maybe five or six sets, some of which were inherited from my father, a professional photographer who ran several photographic laboratores and had a good background in optics. Believe it or not, my fav set is not any of the above. Comfort counts as well. I use daily a Nikon Team Real Tree compact unit. They are relatively inexpensive for the quality and in your price range, depending on the magnification you desire. They fold up easily and well to fit a pocket, are easily adjusted too, important if you need to do it on the fly. My mate had problems with it initially because he wears glasses, and I don't. That's another issue to consider. Just google some sites about choosing binocs and they'll walk you through it, but again of all my sets, I use the little Nikon most.

These are not the brightest binoculars made. The guide number is 60/15 or 4. The standard of comparison is a 7 x 50 binocular with a guide number of 50/7 or about 7. A military grade 7 x 50 binocular is almost twice as bright.