Birding Stuff
Welcome to the Birding Optics
If you acquire nothing else in the way of birding equipment, you must have a good pair of binoculars. Unless you are Snow White, you are not going to have birds land on finger while you sing to them. And, who wants that anyway? The joy is in observing birds doing natural things in a natural setting. Therefore, you must keep your distance from them and that requires binoculars.

Using binoculars is pretty simple as long as you understand a few basic rules. These are important! You read my article and another here. I will summarize a few points here:

  • Use a 7 or 8 power pair. ANy more powerful and you will find that your hand shakes so much that you get sea sick watching the bird.

  • Be sure that the lens are marked as "fully coated" and not merely "coated" This coating greatly reduces the loss of light through the glass.

  • When you see a bird - or anything- stare at it and bring your binoculars up to intersect your view line. In that way they will automatically center on the bird. Do not look away and bring up your binoculars; you will spend a long time trying to find the bird who has flown away out of impatience with you by that time.

  • Do not use the carry strap that came with the binoculars; you will get a sore neck pretty quickly. Use a harness such as I show below on this page. It makes a huge difference.

  • Keep the lenses clean. Use a can of compressed air such as you can find at a computer store to blow away the dust and sand particles before you start the wash and wipe the lens surface. This will greatly reduce the likelihood of scratching.

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    Bushnell makes a good inexpensive pair of binoculars - please take a look at this one: Bushnell Natureview 8x40 Porro Prism Birding Binocular
    Nikon has held a good reputation in the optics market. Take a look: Nikon 7216 Action 8x40mm Binoculars
    This pair is an example of a zoom model which is neat. Bushnell Powerview 7-15x35 Zoom Binocular
    An absolute must, in my opinion, is a carrying harness to get weight off your neck: Cabela's Pro Binocular Harness/Soft Cover Combo (Porro,camo)
    Spotting scopes provide power but need to be on a tripod.Tasco World Class 20-60x80 Zoom Waterproof/Fogproof Spotting Scope w/Tripod

     

    The three pair of binoculars at the right typify the balance between cost and value. My personal pair are the Stokes Broadwing which I love although mine are only 8X and this one is 10X. While 10X is nice for the power, you need to be able to hold your arms very still to use one without bouncing the bird around.

    The pair at the far right are very high-ppowered but have resolved the bnounce issue by the addition of image stabilizing software built intothe unit. They are great for birds sitting still and will provide hours of fascination for you.

    A good strategy to shopping is use the Amazon search box at the lower right of this opage.