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September 16 2008 Well, that last post turned out to be a bad joke. Health-wise, 2008 has turned out to be the worst year I've had in decades - as I type this I'm getting to the end, I hope, of what must be the 10th respiratory infection in 9 months. And that to the usual ME-related crappiness and spreading arthritis, plus failing eyesight and it's been a pretty dismal year. Then I went and got myself a driving ban and really screwed things up!

So, of necessity, there will be something of a hiatus - to put it mildly - for a while. My first priority is to get my Motability contract terminated - a car I can't drive is no use at all - and get back my DLA. The driving ban, while traumatic and expensive, only brought forward the inevitable, as it's debatable whether I'd have been able to continue to drive for much longer anyway, as my health worsened, and for that last year I've been unable to drive any sort of worthwhile distance anyway.

Once I get my DLA back I can, using a combination of public transport and taxis, regain a degree of mobility and, health-permitting, I may well be able to get out birding again. And, of course, my disabled person's transport pass now has the same nationwide range as the OAP pass - except, in both cases, for Scotland. Which made me wonder about those claims by old codgers to have traveled from Land's End to John O'Groats on their travel pass - it can't be done.

What I want - and need - is some form of personal transport, the usual option for someone in my position being a mobility scooter. However, an electric bike, or trike, is probably a more viable option, and I've discussed that here.

I'm not getting either for a while, as a scooter just isn't viable the way the weather has been this year - and last, for that matter - far too rainy for a scooter to be a sensible option (I don't want to be locked into a 3-year Motability contract only to have the thing sit here unused, because it's too wet), and I won't be able to afford a bike/trike until next autumn (I don't know why you can't get electric bikes/trikes on Motability - they're a sensible option for someone who can't drive, or who doesn't want a car).

Anyway, that's how things stand at present. If I'm well enough, there will be some birding outings over the autumn/winter, and any photos will be posted here - check the Updates page occasionally.

April 28 2008 Hey, look, I'm back! Well, sort of. I've been pretty sick for most of this year so far, so I haven't been out birdwatching - or anything else for that matter. There's also been the problem that, despite a couple of ideas, I still found it hard to take photos with my telescope/SLR body combo - the difficulty was that in less than perfect, sunny, weather, it was very hard to see anything through the camera/telescope.

Now, though, all that's about to change - I've bought a digital SLR. See here for details.

October 28 2007 I'm in need of a new walking stick, as my crutch is too cumbersome for using with bins or my camera (too much weight hanging on my arm), so I tend not to use it when birding - which isn't a good thing, and seriously cramps my style. I'm awfully tired of the standard institutional grey, though, or the brown of folding sticks, so I set out to find something different.

I found this website after a rummage through Google - nicely-presented and easy to navigate, and anyone wanting a little colour in their lives should find something suitable here. The crutch-handled (adjustable) Red Paisley version is my favourite (the sticks come with wrist-loops where shown, though this isn't mentioned - I checked - am I good to you or what?).

I may get a wooden one, too; I rather like the version with the Flame Scorched handle, though the Mahogany one has its merits (as does the green-anodised aluminium one). Wooden sticks, of course, have to be cut to size, but that's easy enough (Tip: to fine-tune the length of adjustable sticks and crutches, I insert 1p coins into the ferrule - 2 or 3 can make a big difference). A wooden stick can wear in and become like an old friend - I have a stout one from my walking days, metal-shod and covered in badges, that has been all round England and Wales, and half way across Europe with me - modern aluminium staffs, while extremely effective, have no soul.

I'll order tomorrow, and let you know how I get on.

October 18 2007 Still not much birdwatching. Went to Denhall Quay three weeks ago, but didn't report it here because we saw a bird that doesn't, as far as I can tell, exist in the British list, and I wanted to identify it first. No luck, though.

It was a heron, very much like our common grey heron, but a bit chunkier and mostly green. And no, I wasn't mistaken - this bird gave me the best view of any bird so far, flying straight into my scope from about half a mile away, circling a lagoon a couple of hundred yards distant, before disappearing into a ditch very close to me. One thing I particularly noticed - you do to want to be crapped on by a heron - trust me on this!

Anyway, I'm absolutely sure about the colour (and, of course, my camera wasn't attached to the scope - now I know who those UFO and Bigfoot sighters feel!), and to confirm it, it was joined by another, identical, bird. They flew around a bit, at close quarters, before heading off north in line astern. A breeding pair? Who knows?

So, it's not in any of my books; it's not in any online databases I've checked so far, and I even posted what info I have on Birdtrack, in the hope I'd get some feedback - zilch - and that's where it rests for now. Update: I emailed the RSPB, to see if it rang any bells - the s.o.b. that replied as good as told me I was lying, which makes me question whether I'll renew my membership next year...

I'm hoping to get to Martin Mere sometime this month (even though I hate the drive through Liverpool/Bootle). A question - are there any carless disabled birders in North/Mid Wirral who might like to join me on this or other outings? My car is easily accessible to most ambulatory people - that's why I chose it. No smokers, though, and I hate football, and I confess to a preference for female company.

For anyone wanting to try birding, I have enough spare equipment for one other person.

Or are there any disabled birders at all on or Wirral (or even nationally?), who might be interested in forming a disabled birders group, with outings designed to minimise walking? In either case, contact me here. Admittedly, there is a Disabled Birders Association and I'm a member, but their focus is primarily on access rather than trips (except for annual trips to foreign destinations), so I see no conflict of interests. What I envisage is along the lines of a conventional birding group, but which takes account of the physical (and, often, financial), limitations of disabled birders. One thing, though - I would be looking to make this a non-smoking group. There are few things more infuriating than to be standing downwind of a smoker (why go into the great outdoors, just to pollute it?), and, of course, the smell in more intimate areas, like woodland, is likely to alarm birds.

September 3 2007 Well, since its inception, this has pretty much been the not birding blog, what with weeks of rain and the vagaries of ME & COPD. Hopefully, as autumn rolls around - assuming we get one and the warm and wet weather doesn't just carry on - I'll be able to get out more. I function much better when/if it's cool. Fingers crossed.

August 19 2007 No birdwatching at all since Cubbins Green - it's not stopped sodding raining long enough. Annoying because, as I said below, I've solved the digiscoping problem - or whatever you call digiscoping when it's done using a 35mm camera - photoscoping, presumably. Whether that's the correct word or not, it'll do, and that's what I'll use here. Once it stops raining - though the forecasters say that summer's over (what summer!?), and rain is going to be the norm for the rest of the season. Possibly, the way it's looking, the rest of eternity.

August 4 2007

Excellent birdwatching outing, yesterday, to Cubbins Green, a grassy, cliff top venue on the Dee estuary. Access is very easy, level and very close to the car-park. A very so-so beach below, with a sewage outlet, but the birds loved it. Lots of oyster catchers, with a sprinkling of curlews, all busily feeding, and an assortment of gulls, mostly just mooching about, and mostly black-headed, with quite a lot of first-summer birds. Cormorants moved upriver in groups of three or four on the rising tide, with a couple stopping to feed directly in front of my position - hard to spot in the increasingly choppy water.

I discovered, while I was out, that under the rubber eye cup there's a screw thread, which seemed to have no immediate function. I checked it out when I got home, and it was for attaching a T2 camera mount (one side is threaded, the other has a bayonet fitting which engages with the camera's lens mount). Which was puzzling, as they sell an adapter for this, at an absurd £35. Anyway, I tried it out and it seems fine, but there was a snag. If you screw the T2 adapter too tightly, the front element of the eyepiece unscrews when you try to remove it. Improvising a pin wrench from a pair of needle-nose pliers, and inserting it into the holes in the eyepiece apparently for that purpose, enabled me to remove the T2 and screw down the eyepiece again. A better tool will be made shortly, by modifying an item from my fly-tying toolkit.

It will, of course, take a little while to get the feel of this new setup, but photos should appear on the Gallery page before too long.

August 3 2007

The links to the RSPB (Birding and Birding Links pages), are temporarily out of action. Check back, as they should return to normal before too long. Update - they did.

July 25 2007

I've tried combining both teleconverters with the 200mm lens, to give 1200mm - just for the hell of it. On a dull day the image is very dark, so it needs bright sun. However, it was still possible to focus though, of course, the split image and microprism band don't work, but using the matte area of the screen was OK - how easy this is at longer distances, I have my doubts, but beyond a couple of hundred feet it'll be set to infinity anyway. How good it will be for birding I don't know - time will tell - but my gut feeling is not very! Still, there's only one way to find out - if it ever stops raining long enough!!

July 11 2007

Dismal weather, still, but if it's half-way decent tomorrow I'm going to the WWT reserve at Martin Mere - not been there for years. At least, if it rains, they have several large hides.

I've added a couple of items to my camera kit, too. A short zoom lens, 38-90 mm, and a 2x teleconverter. That should cover all eventualities as, in theory at least, it gives me focal lengths from 38 mm to 1380 mm! In practice, it just wouldn't work, as there'd probably be substantial image degradation, and it'd be a real bugger to focus. It might be worth sacrificing a bit of film trying a combination of 2x and 3x teleconverters, and the 200 mm prime lens, to give me 1200 mm. Again, focusing is likely to be a pig, but it's worth a try, especially as focusing is likely to be set at infinity anyway.

Both my zoom lenses - the 70-230 and the 38-90 were made by Sun Optical, and very good they are too. Sun started by making camera lenses in 1987, and switched production to CCTV and other lenses in 1994 - as far as I can tell from the dreadful website (it's impossible to tell if camera lens continued alongside or was discontinued). Anyway, it does mean that my lenses are somewhere between 20 and 13 years old, and I'd tend towards the later date, as Minolta haven't really ever been a market leader (despite creating the first-ever auto-focus SLR), and I doubt Sun's first priority would be making lenses to fit their camera, but who can say for sure? The important thing is that they're all excellent optically, and mechanically sound; they're in very good cosmetic condition, too.

I've now found another processing lab that offers developing and scanning straight to CD, but at much higher resolutions than Fuji, which will result in higher-quality images. The downside? The price - £13 per film. But here's what annoys me, lower-res scans are only £8, and while it takes a little longer to scan hi-res than lo-res, the difference when using commercial machinery is minuscule, and I don't believe such a price hike is justified. So it's back to square one - I'll get prints and scan them myself.

In fact, since I wrote that, I've fished out an old photo and scanned it, and the quality is much better than the Fuji scans that were the source of the pics on the Gallery page, so that's clearly the way to go. Tip for scanning photos - glossy give a better result.

July 6 2007

Interesting to see, in my website stats, that this page has had more hits than my main Blog so far this month, especially as there's been no new posts for a while. Anyway, as I'm sure you don't need me to tell you, the weather has been unremittingly grim for the last couple of weeks, so I haven't been out much. My health's been very poor, too, which hasn't helped.

I've stopped using my 70-230 mm zoom lens for bird photography in the woods - at least on the one occasion it's been dry enough to use my camera - because by the time I've zoomed and focused, the bird's gone! My 200 mm lens is more suitable, as it focuses down to 9 feet - most birds won't be any closer than that - and, with no zoom to faff around with, it can be focused very quickly.

You know, I'm sure I've written about the lenses before, but I can't remember where, so if I have, apologies!

June 15 2007

No trip to the Dee today - after over 48 hours of torrential rain, the site will be a mudbath. Anyway, I've got a doctor's appointment exactly at the time of high water.

This rain, of course, is likely to have a dramatic effect on bird life, as a great many nestlings will die as a result of being waterlogged and chilled. Many species can withstand a bad breeding year, but increasingly, a lot can't, particularly some songbirds. We'll just have to wait and see.

As some of you will have noticed, I've created a Gallery page. The pics there, so far, aren't wonderful, as I'm still getting to grips with my new camera system, and the weather on both days (one day at Roodee Mere, and the other at Storeton Woods), was dire - dry, but with heavy cloud and zero sun. Still, it's a start, and it'll grow. Eventually, It'll be a page of thumbnails, that you click to get the full-size pic - otherwise it's get too big and slow, but for now, it'll do. Storeton woods, by the way, is wheelchair accessible, as is the Mere - just in case any DWP prodnoses are reading this.

I'm impressed by my photographic kit; I don't think any of it is under 20 years old, and it all works faultlessly. The 200mm lens, combined with the 3x teleconverter, isn't a happy combination, though, as it's incredibly hard to focus. Still, the 200mm will make a good standard lens for birding in the woods, as it focuses down to 9 feet, and birds aren't likely to come much closer than that.

Another handicap to precise focusing is my Varifocal glasses - it's all to easy to look through the wrong part of the lens, which affects how I see the viewfinder image. I'm going to revert to my standard distance specs for photography, and when using my scope - see how much difference it makes, if any.

For my pics, I used Fuji's Develop and Scan to CD service - for a fiver you get your pics on CD, two sets, hi-res and lo-res, plus an index print and return postage. The lo-res prints are perfect for website use.

June 12 2007

Spring tide high water about 12:30 Friday - hopefully, with good weather, this one will be successful, as previous visits to the Dee marshes to catch a high tide, have fallen to pieces for various reasons, not least the fact that it can be absurdly cold there. Fingers crossed...

June 9 2007

Two outings with my camera last week. To Royden Park, on Thursday, to have a look at the lake. Not a lot, apart from mallards, with lots of juveniles about, and a couple of families with ducklings. Lots of bushes in flower, to add colour, so I got plenty of pics of ducks and bushes, and some just of the bushes and lake. The point was, really, to get the feel of my camera and the 70-230mm zoom lens, as it's a long time since I used a manual camera.

Friday saw me in Storeton Woods where, as usual, we could hear loads of birds, but see very little. Still, it was very pleasant there, and I got quite a few woodland photos, even if any birds in them were there entirely by accident.

It gave me a great deal of pleasure to use a manual camera again, and have control over the photo-taking process - once I remembered vital things like focusing and winding on the film! It all came back very quickly, though and, by the end of the film, it had all become second nature once more. Now all I have to do is get the film processed. Most processors offer develop & print, with a photo CD as an optional extra. Fuji, though, offer a straight to CD service for £4.99, which has to be worth a try.

June 1 2007

Excellent outing to Burton Marsh, on the Dee, today. Plenty of birds around - lots of swifts, black-headed gulls and Little Egrets, with a Little Owl stooping on something undoubtedly small and squeaky, then going off to roost on a post. The high spot was a Great White Heron (a.k.a., apparently, Great White Egret), hundred of miles from its normal range in the south Mediterranean. Some time after that, a helicopter came over low and fast, and put all the birds down, so we called it a day.

I've reported the heron/egret sighting to the British Trust for Ornithology, but it's a shame I didn't have my camera, for confirmation. I'll certainly take it next time.

Down in the south-west, there's been an influx of Glossy Ibis, another stray from the Med, and a group has pitched up at Slimbridge, where they hope they might breed, so my GWH isn't so strange. It does give the lie to those who deny global warming, though.

May 24 2007

Well, my 200mm lens has arrived and, again, it's in perfect condition. Oh, it's well used, like the zoom, but that's no bad thing. The important thing is that it works as it should, and the glass is immaculate. See this page for more camera/lens info.

May 22 2007

Having tried out the 70-230mm zoom with the 3x teleconverter, it gives me a very good image, but is an absolute bugger to hold steady, due to its weight (It's also too heavy for my camera tripod; a new, lighter, lens is way cheaper than a new tripod). So, while the sale's still on (I can't recall if I've told you where, it's here, and the sale is up to 50% off used kit), I've just bought a 200mm telephoto lens for a tenner.

Obviously, none of this is as good as a full-blown 600mm apo telephoto lens - equally obviously, it hasn't cost me the £2,500 or more that this would cost me, and that I'll never be able to afford anyway. It will, though, give a better image quality than the original zoom + teleconverter combo - prime lenses (i.e., not zooms), are always sharper than zooms, lighter, too, and even if the birds are a tad smaller in the photo (I'll have a 600mm, instead of 690mm lens/converter assembly), the higher image quality (than digital), will enable me to blow it up quite substantially in Photoshop.

And for now, that's it. I've got all I need to get out there and take some photographs. Initially, they won't be brilliant - it's a good 20 years since I handled a manual camera (other than very briefly when I first bought my Centon). In a few weeks, though, I intend to get an adapter, so that using the T2 ring, I can attach the SLR body directly to my scope.

May 20 2007

I've spent the last couple of days playing with my new outfit, before loading it with film and venturing out, maybe tomorrow - everything works beautifully, and the optics are clear. The thing is, though, most of what I knew about photography - as in pre auto-everything cameras, and pre ME - is long unused and a bit hard to access. Everything I need is there, it's just a matter of dragging it back up to the surface.

Like photographing birds - you don't have long to get the pic. My camera has a fully-automatic exposure mode, which works brilliantly, as my first film showed. This is grandly titled Program Mode, but it's not really, it's just auto-exposure. Then there's the aperture-priority option; that is, I set the aperture and the camera selects the appropriate shutter speed or fully manual - but manual is only really suitable for subjects that don't flit about as fast as birds do - like buildings, or musk oxen. So, for birds it's Program, which just leaves me with just the framing and focusing to take care of - basically, bird in dead centre, any changes in position can be taken care of in Photoshop - cropping the pic so the bird is nearer one edge, for example. (Note - I'm not a Luddite, I'd love a modern SLR - I can't afford one!)

All this, of course, used to be second nature and, I'm sure, will be again. In fact, my earliest cameras had zero automation - I had to set distance, aperture and shutter speed all by eye and, like many other photographers of that period (slightly after dinosaurs walked the Earth!), I got pretty damned good at it. I did have a light-meter, my trusty old Westonmaster, but that needed an extra hand, and I soon learned to assess light levels as accurately as I did distance - it was a happy day when I got my first camera with a built-in light-meter followed by one with a meter and range-finder, after which single lens reflex (SLR), cameras ruled, with their galaxy of interchangeable lenses, and still do, as the style has been adapted to a new generation of digital cameras.

This is a Westonmaster meter of the style that I had. The light level was indicated on the scale at the top (there's a light-sensitive cell on the back, which you pointed at the subject), transferred to the rotatable dials, which then offered you a selection of possible aperture and shutter speed combinations, all of which would give you the same exposure, but substantially different effects in the finished print. For example, wide aperture/high shutter speed, for small depth of field - this would leave the subject sharp, but everything else subtly out of focus, or small aperture/slower shutter speed, which would render almost everything in the photo acceptably sharp. Note: simply put, Depth of Field denotes that area of the photograph which is in focus.

All this is a bit of a simplification, of course, otherwise there's the risk of it becoming Photography 101. It's mainly for those of you who have never seen, or even heard of, a manual camera.

Talking of which, I've noticed, online, that there is increasing dissatisfaction with digital cameras. Letters like this are fairly typical "This is a rubbish camera - unless I keep absolutely still it gives me blurred pictures!" Well of course it will, it's not a rubbish camera, it's a rubbish user! The problem with a digital camera is you don't - for the most part, and I'm talking about point-and-shoot auto-everything compacts here - have the faintest idea what the camera is doing, and it's a pretty safe guess that the blurred picture guy was in a low-light situation, which had caused the camera to select a very slow shutter speed - so he got camera shake and blurred pics.

The cause of the problem is that we now have a generation of digital camera users who, never having used a film camera, have no idea at all what is going on, and even less idea what to do about it if they did. The basics of good photography have hardly changed since the time of Fox Talbot (William Henry Fox Talbot is universally accepted as the Father of Modern Photography - there's a good potted biog here), and if you don't know what they are you'll probably never take a great photograph - what has changed radically is the method of recording the image, of course, from the paper negatives of Fox Talbot to the flash memory cards of today, but that's another subject entirely.

May 19 2007

New page with details of my new SLR outfit (that's new as in secondhand - the SLR body I already had). Eventually, this will be supplemented with a Photographs page. I also need an adapter to connect the T2 ring (see Camera page), to my scope, but at £35, that'll need to wait a while.

You know, one thing I'm grateful to birding for is that it's re-awakened my interest in photography - something I've been away from for far too long. Fortunately, the cost of secondhand kit is modest, but it still has the potential to become a money pit if I'm not careful. Mind you, so has going to the pub, so diverting funds from that will benefit me in all sorts of ways... And I haven't abandoned my digital camera - my SLR will be used primarily for long tele work, for birding or anything else, the digital Fuji for everything else. I had intended to sell the Fuji S602 zoom, but couldn't get a sensible offer, so I'll keep it.

May 17 2007

Bugger!!

I'm feeling conspired against - since I ordered my new scope, it's not stopped raining! It may stop in time for me to catch this afternoon's spring tide, but it'll be way too muddy to bother. Oh well...

Well, as I can't go out, I've taken the scope out into the garden to play with - the previous scopes failed at this point! It's excellent, with a crystal-clear, pin-sharp image - even maximum zoom is useable, for a change. I've been a little worried since I found this website page , as the images for this scope (actually the 90mm, but it's otherwise identical), are rather less than sharp. As I suspected, though, there is something wrong with them, as the image in my scope is perfect. Even at maximum zoom (60x), as I said, it remains sharp, though it's tricky to focus as depth of field is very limited. This isn't a fault, by the way, it's a characteristic of zoom lenses - you have to focus before zooming, then give it a little tweak once you've zoomed.

The tripod - what can I say that I haven't said already? Yes, it's heavy, but - and it's a big but - the image in the scope is absolutely rock-steady. It's everything I expected, and will be perfect for photography. I actually thought the pan and tilt mechanism was too stiff - it is a bit - but then it dawned on me that I could let go of it at any point, and it would stay exactly as I left it, even if I forget to lock it up. Which is actually quite useful, as forgetting to lock the tilt could otherwise mean the scope crashing down and banging into the tripod.

I've treated myself to a lens for my 35mm SLR body - a used 70-230 zoom, plus a used 3x teleconverter, giving me a maximum zoom of 690mm - perfect for bird photos, but it will need a fastish film, 400 ISO at least, maybe even 800. I also got a used T2 mount to attach my SLR body to the scope, for £1 - normal cost £15.

The idea of having a camera and a photo-capable scope is I get the best of both worlds. I can use the scope for viewing, and the camera for pics, or I can set up the scope purely for photos. The camera also allows for greater portability than the scope. I'll need a monopod, but one of the scope legs unscrews for that purpose, which is why I picked it. I can get an adapter for the tripod, so that I can mount the scope and the camera alongside each other, but at £40, that'll have to wait for a while, and I'll use two tripods until then.

All I want now is some decent weather!

May 16 2006

Well, I've got my new scope (here) and, hey, so far it hasn't broken! The tripod is, er, robust - Telford would have been proud of it - but it'll certainly give me a good, solid base, no matter what the conditions. Shame I don't have any kids, though, as it'll certainly outlast me, and probably several generations to come! I've no idea where it was made, but it has all the hallmarks of Soviet mend-it-with-a-hammer engineering.

May 6 2007

I've found a scope that should fulfil all my needs, including digiscoping:-

The Olivon T-80, which comes with the T158/11 tripod at a very good price. Details here.

Assuming this works out - and if it doesn't I may well take to drink! - I'll see about joining the local RSPB group.

I found this website page which purports to show how much better the far more expensive ED (extra-low dispersion glass - it passes more light), version of the scope is. For me, though, the images are useless for comparison. It's quite clear that some of the right-hand, ED, images are brighter that the left-hand, and colour rendition is substantially different, but that could be down to fluctuating light levels. What bothers me is that almost all the left-hand, standard scope pics are ever so slightly out of focus, devaluing the test almost to uselessness. If the standard scope really does give an out-of-focus image, then there is something seriously amiss. I'll judge for myself. There are valid ways of testing lenses against each other - this isn't one of them.

May 4 2007

Unbelievably, another online transaction has gone down the pan - I've never had so many problems - maybe the secondhand camera trade sucks? Anyway, I stumbled on a NEW Minolta Dynax 40 - the last of the Dynax 35mm range. Update: Scratch that, it's faulty, and it's going back on Tuesday!!! I give up - I seem fated not to have a film camera. I think I'll just get a lens for my old manual SLR and put that back into service - life really is too short for all this buggering about!

May 2 2007

OK, then, I've finally sorted out my camera purchase. I've still not heard from the original dealer, despite sending them a selection of possibilities from their website - all they had to do was tell me which were still in stock. Too much trouble, apparently, but it's their loss as I've got a much better deal elsewhere.

I bought a copy of Amateur Photographer (affectionately known as Amateur Pornographer in the sixties, when the Lord Chamberlain was finally put out to grass and censorship ended - well, more or less), and ploughed through the classifieds.

April 29 2007

I'm going back to film photography. I'm fed up with digital cameras that consume batteries absurdly quickly - enough AAs for a day's shooting weighs close to 1lb, and you never seem to have enough. And there's a personal problem - digital photography just doesn't inspire me and I can't explain it.

In theory, there's little difference between an auto-everything digital or film camera - though the film camera is generally less battery-hungry, as power-draining things like zooming are manual. Then there's the problem that the sort of digital camera I can afford just won't give me the image quality of film (I'm not convinced that, at any level, digital can match film, assuming all else is equal, and it's possible I'm not alone, as the digital camera bubble appears to have burst. For example, in any discussion of digital photographs, no matter how high-end the camera, you will always see references to "artifacts". These are elements in the photograph, created by the digital process - this simply doesn't happen with film.

I dug out my old SLR body yesterday - it hasn't been used for 10 years, but as I'd taken the batteries out, and fitted the body cap, it's come to no harm. I don't have a lens - it broke - but I've discovered that lenses and accessories for film cameras are absurdly cheap.

My camera is a Centon DF-300 (essentially a Minolta X-7), with auto exposure and manual focus. I'd originally planned to buy a couple of lenses for it, but without a lens there's no way of knowing if it still works - a bit Catch-22 - so I decided to get a new one. Well, actually secondhand - new ones are way beyond my budget

Update: See May 2.

April 25 2007

Update: Do not - ever - buy one of these scopes! The second one has failed, too, with the same fault as the first - but worse. That sucks. Although both the retailer and manufacturer say they haven't had this fault before, they've damned well got it now - I'm sending it back for a refund. A pity, really, because optically it was really pretty good - no use at all if you can't focus, though. I've noticed, too, that the dealer has removed this model from sale, with a large TBA on the price tag. This makes me think he's maybe bought a cheap batch from somewhere and has come unstuck because they're faulty. I'm trying to find out, from the manufacturer, who their official importer is. It'd damned well better be the same name I got from the dealer, otherwise he's in trouble!

Unbloodybelievable!!

I got my replacement scope a few days ago, and I've just been out in the garden to play with it (I've also got a camera adapter, and the compact digital camera I bought for the purpose is perfect - more on this below), and it's got the same fault as the other one. I've complained - bitterly! - to the dealer and the manufacturer, and I'm waiting to hear from the factory about the problem, as I want to know if I can get at the mechanism myself - if I can, I can probably fix it. I'm not hopeful, though, as at this price point, the body is likely to be glued together rather than screwed .

Camera adapter.

There is a widely-available "universal" camera adapter (see Birding page), that would fit my scope, but make the zoom control unusable. After a lot of searching, I finally found one that was suitable, all metal, and sensibly priced at £32 (below). It's not exactly a sophisticated bit of kit, but there's nothing to go wrong, and it'll last for ever.

It mounts my compact Fuji A360 perfectly, though my much bigger Fuji S602zoom is far too heavy, which is a shame, as it's a much better camera. What I need now, to complete the outfit, is a cable release adapter, and a cable release (shown above), so that camera shake (hugely magnified as the whole scope/camera assembly can shake), is eliminated, and I'm ready to go. That will have to wait until next month, though.

Note on camera shake; it can be completely imperceptible to the user, yet be bad enough to ruin the photo. Using a cable release means that there is no physical contact with the camera, eliminating shake. This particular model is for a different make of camera, but the dimensions are the same, so it should fit mine - if not, a little tweaking will fix that.

April 20 2007

Well, another abortive trip to the Dee marshes yesterday - and for much the same reason as previously - it was bitterly cold, not helped by an on-shore wind not far short of a gale. We stuck it out for an hour, before deciding that sloping off to the pub was better than hypothermia. Still, I've learned my lesson, and next time I'm going to make sure there are plenty of warm clothes in the car, just in case. The next high tide is May 18, at 13.05. You'd think that we should be able to bask in the sun by then - I wouldn't put money on it!

Up at the crack of dawn this morning, to spend an hour or so in Storeton Woods, yesterday's terrible weather having vanished. We'd not been there for over a fortnight, but what a difference two weeks makes. The trees are now in leaf, though lagging far behind other trees in the area (much of Wirral is covered in flowering trees and shrubs), which I can't understand. I thought, at first, it might be too dry, as the land drops fairly sharply away from the eastern edge of the wood, but a scattering of molehills laid that idea to rest, as the soil is very moist just an inch or two down. Anyway, the bird count was much higher this time, with a wren, lots of blackbirds, and woodies, a few magpies and bluetits, and a possible jay, plus something reddish flying very fast and low. We also had a very obliging robin, that sat on a twig just a couple of feet away, for three or for minutes - and, of course, I'd left my camera in the car. The most intriguing sighting was a pair of juvenile magpies - extremely early.

We were out a bit too early - 5.30, as I'd forgotten to add the hour to the GMT times in my tide-table (which also has sun and moon times) - so we went to Tesco first, the end result being that I got some nice blue Wensleydale for breakfast...

April 14 2007

It's occurred to me that, while I've been banging on about the expense of birding, and where to find affordable kit, I've completely overlooked the blindingly obvious - you don't actually need any equipment other than that with which nature provided you. Eyes and ears.

At its most fundamental, birding is simply observation - just look, listen and enjoy, especially if you have a garden. However, like many simple principals, this becomes complicated with the addition of other factors, like disability.

The experience of birding is greatly enhanced if you can, in some way, bring the birds to you. You could sit quietly in a wood - assuming you can get there in the first place - and wait for the birds to arrive. Scattering some bird food may speed this up, as birds are more inclined to put up with people if there's food to be had. Personally, though, I think a more pro-active approach may be better, and that means spending some money. As I've said, birding equipment can be terrifyingly expensive - you don't have to buy it, though. Budget kit is perfectly adequate, even if it does lack the kudos of a badge that attracts a price tag which, in the real world, would get you a decent used car.

The least you need is a pair of binoculars, especially is you can get around easily. 8 x 42 is a perfect size (that's 8x magnification, with a 42 mm objective lens). Waterproof bins, in this unreliable climate of ours, are desirable, too.

If you're not ambulant, or have difficulty walking, then you'll need a scope. I'd recommend one with an 80 mm objective lens, for brightness of image, and with a 20 - 60x zoom, though in reality, you're unlikely to want to use a higher magnification than 40x on a regular basis, as the exit pupil - the bit you look through - gets smaller as the magnification gets higher at 60x magnification, with an 80 mm objective, the exit pupil will be a mere 1.3 mm - a pinhole.

If you have a scope, you'll need a tripod - a photographic one will be fine, and cost you far less than a "special" birding one. You can get a complete outfit, bins, scope and tripod, for less than £200 - and you don't have to buy it all at once. A folding chair, or stool, is good, too.

And that's it - that's the beauty of birding - you can stop spending money now (oh, except for a decent field guide to birds - it's nice to know what you're looking at - and if you join the RSPB you get one thrown in).

I know I've said much of this, at far greater length (!), elsewhere - this seemed like a good point to pull it all together.

April 13 2007

I've finally heard from FedEx. Still no explanation of their creative inflation of the carriage charge (see below for the whole, tedious, saga), but they have scrubbed the invoice as a "gesture of goodwill". So a good result, and I'd encourage anyone else with an invoice they know is clearly incorrect, whether from FedEx or anyone else, to challenge it and keep on challenging it until it's corrected or just goes away - no-one should pay charges they haven't legitimately incurred.

I took my new scope out yesterday, to check it out, and there's a problem!!!! Optically, it's very good - the problem is that the focus knob keeps sticking. The dealer I bought it from is happy to swap it out, so it's not a problem except for the cost of sending the bugger back!

I did look at the possibility of digiscoping with it, using my new compact camera, but a circular image is totally unavoidable at any combination of camera and scope settings. I'm beginning to suspect that we're being had by digiscopers, and they simply crop round images rectangular! I'd hate to buy a how-to book to find this out, only to find I can't do it anyway. I think this is one project that heading for the back burner for a while.

I almost forgot to mention - I'm adding this on Saturday - that where we went was the place we go for high-tide birding on the Dee - Denhall Quay - and it was actually pretty good even without a tide to bring the birds inshore. The star was what appeared to be a Little Egret - hundreds of miles away from its normal range, which made me doubtful, and it didn't hang around long enough to study it (owing to a sudden influx of kids and dogs - you never have a shotgun when you need one!), but there's nothing else in the books and online databases that it could have been so, by default, a Little Egret it was, and I've reported the sighting to the Dee Estuary Birding website.

I got an email back saying there was a breeding colony nearby, which is referred to in an article three years deep in their archives - not exactly easy to find. Oh well, there'll be others.

April 11 2007

My new scope arrived this morning (allowing for the holiday, that amounts to next-day service - pretty damned good as delivery was included in the very low price), and I'm remarkably impressed with the quality of the entire package, the more so considering the price. Even the table-top tripod, so often a bit of tat, is very good, being almost entirely decent-quality cast aluminium, and eminently usable - perfect for hide use. The scope body, too, is made from cast aluminium, and rubber armoured, very unusual at this price point, where most scopes are made of polycarbonate or other plastics. In conjunction with the hard case, it augurs well for a long life.

The focus knob can be turned easily with a finger-tip, and the zoom control moves easily, too.

I've just taken it out in the garden to try it out, and it's absolutely superb, with a bright, crisp image and zero colour fringing or other chromatic aberrations, even at maximum zoom. I had an obliging blackbird to watch, and the definition is pin-sharp. The only problem - and this is common with most, if not all, zoom scopes - is that at maximum zoom (60x), the exit pupil (the bit you look through), is reduced to a minute 1.3 mm (effectively, a pin-hole), and, with glasses, I find it hard to use. When I can get a clear view, it's perfect. At 40x zoom, it's much more usable.

At the risk of being boring, the hard case is pretty good quality, too. Built on a riveted aluminium and steel frame, with steel fittings and ABS plastic panels, it looks very durable. It's lockable, but as locks on a case like this are pointless - a thief would just take the case - it matters not at all that they're easily picked. It contains, in addition to the scope and tripod, a flat-packed soft case - fold out the end panels, zip them in place and you have a normal soft case - ingenious. It also has an SLR camera adapter, which I have no use for, so I've taken it out and my lens cleaning kit can live in its space. (Note: this may be of some use after all - it's the right size to enable me to hold my big camera firmly in place by hand - well worth a try.)

I got a reply from the manufacturer, and they confirmed it's not waterproof - the website where I saw that it was has the specification for a more expensive scope - I can't help wondering how many people bought the scope without checking. Anyway, that's not really a problem as I wanted it mainly for hide use.

As with so many things these days, the whole package was made in China, but by a Chinese company, not by a Western company who've hived off production to the Orient, and it's all manufactured and assembled on the same site. In addition, Vanguard's the US branch are the only company to have responded to my request for information.

A hide clamp, should the supplied tripod prove a bit too high for use in a hide (I don't think it will, though), would set me back at least £45 - probably about twice what it's really worth - so I've built my own, using part of the table-top tripod from my original scope (which also, unusually, is almost all metal, though rather crude), bolted to parts of a fly-tying jig. Not exactly elegant, but it works perfectly and, more importantly, didn't cost me anything.

Tomorrow, I must find somewhere to go and play with the scope, make sure everything is as it should be. It has Bak4 prisms, as I've said, so I should get good image quality with no colour fringing. This, by the way, is a rainbow-like outline around whatever it is you're looking at.

Just a thought, but tripods aimed at birders claim light weight and rigidity - and they are ferociously expensive. The thing is, though, I have a tripod that I've had for many years (coincidentally, also made by Vanguard), which is adequately rigid (you simply can't get total rigidity in a device mainly comprising sliding and hinged parts), and lighter than allegedly lightweight ones. So who's kidding whom?

April 5 2007

Vanguard VSP-81.

Note: Details of this scope have been removed, as it proved seriously defective, and although the manufacturers insisted it was a glitch, the promised feedback to demonstrate this has not materialised, so I can only assume this scope is complete rubbish

Note: if you want cheap(ish) scopes check out these guys - scroll down the page to Terrestrial Telescopes in the lefthand menu. I bought my current Olivon T80 there - see above.

Note for those who don't know about hides. They are usually extremely basic, being little more than a wooden shed with a bench along one wall, which has unglazed slots in it for viewing, and a wide shelf for mounting equipment/leaning on. Facilities are normally zero, they are freezing in winter and baking in summer. They also, like sheds everywhere, attract spiders, which may cause some problems for me! A hide keeps the rain off and, if you're lucky, the wind, too, in winter - and that's about it - it's main function is to keep you out of sight of the birds. I've seen hides which are merely a wooden fence with with a slit about eye level, which is about as basic as it gets. On the other hand, there are some very upmarket hides, with most mod cons, especially at large reserves, but the basic ones far outnumber them.

April 4 2007

Dawn outing to Storeton Wood, Wirral. Lots of birdsong at that time of day, but not a huge number of visible birds - still, in terms of sightings it was the best yet. Nothing too dramatic - magpies, the odd crow/rook, blackbirds, and lots of blue tits. And dog walkers in droves, which didn't help. It's a public wood, though, so we have to be tolerant of each other. As dawn gets earlier, it might be possible to get there before them. Apparently a woodpecker of some sort is a frequent visitor - fewer people might encourage it to show itself - but not when we were there. Bird activity really got under way about 30 minutes after sunrise, which is worth bearing in mind - I can have a bit longer in bed!

I want to get to the woods on Bidston Hill, too, but like Storeton Woods, it all depends on how well, or even if, I can walk. The walk at Storeton was measured in yards, but I'm still out of action as a result. I must get around to joining the Wirral RSPB group, too.

There's a location in Heswall (Wirral), that has potential for birding from, or very close to, the car, so I must check that out soon.

On the 19th there's another spring tide, so it's down to the Dee marshes again. I missed the March spring tides, but this month the peak is on a Thursday afternoon, which will give a couple of good hours from noon onwards.

March 27 2007

FedEx Update: An online check shows that FedEx have a history of overcharging users - I can only suggest that, if you import stuff and it comes via FedEx, you check the paperwork very carefully if you get a bill for VAT and/or import duty.

Bins...

I took the plunge and bought a decent pair of binoculars last week. I couldn't really afford them, but they were in a sale, discounted by over 50% and I didn't want to miss them, as I needed a waterproof pair, so I borrowed the money from a friend. I got them here.

I've been using a pair of Dixon's porroprism 8x40s - relics of a brief flirtation with birding in the mid 80s - which are absolutely fine, giving a bright, crisp image; but they're not waterproof. The new ones, 8x42, are (and nitrogen-filled), and they're roof prism, which makes them a tad more compact. Rubber armoured, too.

The image quality is excellent, and while porro bins are supposed to give a more 3-D image than roof prisms, I'm not aware of any difference. There was one problem - the focusing knob was extremely stiff, but I noticed that the rubber coating of the knob was rubbing quite hard against the rubber covering of the bins - a few seconds with sharp scissors - problem solved.

I'm really very pleased with them. They come with a lightly-padded, soft case, wide neck-strap, rain shields for the eyepieces, and linked lens caps for the objectives - which are useless as they fall off. This isn't much of a problem, as they're only used in storage. For those who don't wear glasses, they have twist-up eye-cups - much better than the folding type. With them down there's no difficulty getting a full-field view while wearing glasses, and the centre hinge is stiff enough to maintain the inter-pupil distance when they're put away, so you don't have to reset them every time.

March 26 2007 (1)

FedEx fuss...

My scope, as you know, came from America. This means that, as the importer, I'm responsible for the VAT. This is applied to the actual value of the goods. In my case, though, the couriers, FedEx are trying to screw me by applying VAT to the full carriage charge as well as the scope itself. Not only that, they have ramped up the actual value of the carriage by £20 more than I paid.

I accept my VAT liability in respect of the scope, and of the UK portion of the carriage, but there is no way that the cost of international transportation should be subject to UK taxes (and no way at all that this cost can suddenly increase). Anyway, I'm fed up arguing with the and I've passed the whole thing on to HM Customs & Excise, who are responsible for collecting VAT - let FedEx explain to them why they are trying to collect VAT on an entirely fictitious amount of money - it makes me wonder if FedEx will be paying HMC&E the VAT on the proper amount, or on their inflated amount. We're not talking about a lot of money here, but if they make a habit of this it will certainly mount up. How many people, I wonder, simply pay what they're asked, without checking the figures?

March 26 2007 (2)

Hmm...

We are all familiar with the appearance of Bill Oddie in birding mode - he's not the sharpest of dressers. I was taken aback when, in the current issue of Bird magazine, there he is, fronting an ad for his birding clobber; not by his presence, but by the prices.

The jacket comes in at a nifty £250, the trousers at £125 and the multi-pocketed vest at a mind-blowing £160. The fabric for all is Ventile - essentially 1930's technology. Now I have no objection to anyone spending their own money on stuff like this - it's entirely their business - but I do question the wisdom of spending close to £500 to look, as Bill so often does, like an unmade bed!

For those not familiar with Ventile, it's a very tightly woven cotton fabric, which achieves its waterproof qualities by the swelling of the fibres when wet, preventing the further ingress of water. It usually comes in a double-layer construction to protect the wearer from the wet outer layer. It works, for a given value of "works", but is heavy when wet and a bugger to dry. I used to walk with a guy who wore a Ventile jacket and it has to be said that, at the end of a remorselessly wet day, he was just as wet as anyone else - the main difference being that his jacket was a pound or two heavier! It's also, as you can see, expensive (you can get, for example, a polycotton multi-pocket vest for about a tenth of the price). These days its position in the outdoor market has become that of a niche product, as there are far better synthetic fabrics available at similar prices, or even much less. I have to admit, though, that fans of Ventile would never admit that synthetics can be better - each to their own.

For birders, Ventile's main advantage is that it doesn't rustle like nylon. However, you can get similar levels of weather protection and quietness by buying army surplus kit and treating it with one of the Nikwax range of waterproofing products, and at a fraction of the price. Or, if you don't like that idea, the Paramo range is worth a look - it's not cheap, though, but not much is these days anyway. It works on the principal of a tightly-woven fabric waterproofed with a Nikwax product. Indeed, both Nikwax and Paramo were founded by the same guy - Nick Brown.

Waxed jackets, of the type popularised by the green welly brigade, are very good, but can be expensive and the wax can stain your car seat and your trousers. Modern waxes are "dry", but even so, muck clings to it and, subsequently, to you.

Personally, I'm sticking to my Craghoppers AquaDry jacket, which I've had for years. It doesn't rustle a great deal, is waterproof and breathable, and is a nice, unobtrusive dark green.

When it comes to rustling noises, overtrousers, in the rain, are by far the worst offenders. This can be overcome by simply not wearing them, but wearing outdoors trousers with a water-repellent treatment. Craghoppers Kiwi trousers are good, as are Regatta Action trousers, both keep out the weather quite well, and dry very quickly when wet; both are well discounted by online suppliers. If you want supplier info, email me.

March 19 2007

Bugger!!!

Digiscoping may down the pan. It seems that you need a really high-quality (and very expensive), scope, in order to maximise light transmission, to make it work. It's possible that a scope with a large-ish objective lens, without the luxury of extra-low dispersion glass in the lenses may work on a bright summer day, so I haven't entirely given up hope. In the meantime, I'll keep my Fuji S602 zoom camera to hand - I tend to forget it has the equivalent of a 210mm lens on a 35mm camera. Not a huge telephoto, but serviceable, and wait for the good weather to arrive.

I'm not sure if the camera I bought for digiscoping is suitable. The question is, just how does the auto-focus work in this situation? It clearly does, as many people use digital compacts for the job. As you may know (if you're into photography anyway), if you stand in front of a mirror and photograph your image, the focus distance it twice the distance from you to the mirror. That's not a problem with manual focus, though it can fool auto-focus. Through a scope, though, where the image arrives at the eyepiece via several lens elements, a couple of prisms and a mirror, what does all that do to the focus distance - and how does the camera cope? This question may explain why digiscopers seem to concentrate on just a very few cameras...

There's a very high tide tomorrow and Wednesday, so I was planning to head to the Dee marshes again, but the weather is a bit of a disincentive. There's no point in impersonating a brass monkey for a few hours if I don't have to. Not when there's a nice, warm, pub much closer to home.

March 13 2007

Digiscoping...

I've found the ideal location for getting the hang of digiscoping - Roodee Mere, at Royden Park, Wirral. Mere is a bit grand - it's a big pond. It does, though, have a small population of semi-tame birds - Canada geese, mallards, and even a very blasé moorhen (these usually scurry for shelter as soon as a they see you) - which are very used to people. Much closer than Martin Mere and its birds, and free - always a great incentive. There's some info on digiscoping, for anyone who's interested, here and some excellent pics here . Most digiscopers seem obsessed with the Nikon Coolpix cameras - as these have been discontinued for quite some time, this seems a tad futile. In reality, almost any digital compact can be pressed into service - this is my new Fuji Finepix a360 zoom.

Not a great image, but I can't find a better one. It uses xD picture cards, either Fuji or Olympus brands, and you can get a 1GB Olympus type H card (faster than type M), for £12.99 at 7dayshop.com

March 8 2007

Camera...

Well, I ventured out with my camera today, to see what its performance was like, and I was horrified, when I'd uploaded them to my computer, to see how horrible they were. Only one of them was sharp.

Now, for some time, I've had an intention tremor. It's not bad, but it's obviously making its presence felt with a very light camera - I hoped that was the reason anyway. My other camera is heavy, which damps down the tremor, and can be used at higher shutter speeds, too, which with shutter priority mode eliminates the problem.

So I set up the camera on a tripod, and too several pics of my bookcase, as it has lots of detail in the book's spines. The resulting pics were pin-sharp, which was a relief. Colour saturation is a little dull (but that could happen with film anyway), but that's not a problem as it can be tweaked in Photoshop quite easily.

March 4 2007

FedEx Fubar...

Yesterday I got a rather unexpected VAT invoice from FedEx, for my scope. This is the first time ever that this has happened, and I suspect that the reason is FedEx. Previous consignments arrived by post - this is the first by courier service, and couriers' airwaybills are copied to the Customs people, hence the tax.

I could have lived with that had FedEx not tried to screw me. 17.5% VAT on £36 is £6.30, not the £13.94 they're asking for (and adding their own £4.50 charge, too). I've bounced the invoice and I'm waiting for their reply, but there's no way they'll be getting what they ask for.

So, when buying from foreign suppliers, make sure your goods are sent by mail, then you should be OK. Postal items are still legally subject to VAT and duty, but the process seems to be entirely random.

March 1 2007

Camera...

Well, my camera came early today, and it's fine. As I thought, its functions are few, which is just what I need - I already have an all-singing, all-dancing digital camera - I didn't need another (one day I set out to count its functions - bearing in mind that all you really need are three, maybe four functions; focus, shutter speed and aperture, maybe zoom too - when I got to 70 I rather lost the will to live, and I hadn't got to the end!).

It's perfect for digiscoping, being tiny and relatively light (195g including batteries), all I need now is the camera adapter, which will have to wait a while.

My email to the RSPB, regarding reserve access information, and their reply is here .

February 28 2007

This page is new today - the original Birding page was getting way too big.

Just bought myself a new compact digital camera, for digiscoping - a Fuji A360 - not the most sophisticated camera available, but that's not necessary, and the 4.1 megapixel CCD should be adequate. It cost me £30 from Fuji UK, and is refurbished; it comes with a 6-month warranty. If you're in the market for an affordable digital camera, I'd certainly recommend a look at the Fuji website, as refurbished Fuji cameras there seem to be cheaper than at Fuji retailers.

I was a bit dismayed to see quite a lot of bad reviews online, until I realised that they were from the same few people, most of whom seemed simply inept. One guy was moaning about every camera movement producing horrible, blurry pictures. Well, of course it does - you're supposed to keep the sodding thing still - camera shake is a defect in the user, not the camera. The problem with most users is that they come to digital cameras with no grounding in film cameras, and expect far more from the camera than it can give - and then they bitch about it. If you are an inept photographer, a digital camera won't change that by one iota. What it will do, though, is allow you to take 100s of pictures in the hope of getting a good one, but you have to at least master the basics of composition and avoiding camera shake, even if the camera does everything else for you. If you can't be bothered doing this, you're just wasting your time - take up tiddlywinks instead.

February 26 2007

I went to Inner Marsh Farm Today. I was talking about 30,000 visitors a year a few days ago, which is just not possible. There's a hide, which might hold 10 people, and a car-park which holds maybe 10 cars. So, it seems clear that the claimed 30,000 visitors a year refers to birds, not people - it would have been nice if this had been made clear...

Right, then, Inner Marsh Farm access. Basically, from an ME perspective, it's crap. The approach is downhill, and a bit slippery in the wet weather we had today, and when you get to the hide - up a few unfeasibly large steps - er... that's it.

Eventually, for a variety of reasons, mainly related to beer deprivation, we left, and the return to the car-park was absolute purgatory. If you are remotely disabled, this is a good place to avoid. The return trip was fairly steeply uphill, and not fun at all. Going down to the hide, it was wet underfoot, coming back, after no more than ten minute's rain, it was a morass.

This was my first "proper" birding outing and, basically, it sucked. OK, that's probably a bit unfair, as the RSPB didn't claim it was a site with disabled access, but given the requirements of the DDA, should they have tried harder? Is it fair to expect a place like this to conform to the requirements of disabled people as regards access? To be honest, I think the answer has to be no. I remember reading, back in the seventies, a complaint that the Pennine Way was devoid of public toilets - a whinge which met with the derision it deserved - I believe that expecting a bird reserve to be accessible to all might be just as unreasonable, as they are mostly natural environments with the addition of access paths and maybe a hide or two. Those to whom easy and level access is essential should check their chosen destination carefully, I'd recommend Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserves as many, maybe all, are disabled-friendly.

The RSPB awards some reserves a wheelchair symbol, which looks promising, but when you click on the Accessibility link, you often get this:-

Important note
This is a natural site with unimproved paths and trails - the access around this site may not be suitable for all visitors. If you have concerns, please contact the reserve or regional office before your visit to discuss your requirements.

Sorry, but the two are mutually exclusive, and I'm going to take this up with the RSPB. (I did - my email, and the reply is here)

My walking ability is normally limited by how long it takes my legs to give out, but this time it was my lungs that gave out first - a worrying development, though not unexpected. Either way, though, I obviously need to be fitter. This morning (the following day), I was alarmed to find my hips have seized up, but my knees, which are pretty well wrecked at the best of times, aren't too bad - very strange.

One thing that struck me, in the hide, was that my scope is a bit long, so we used binoculars instead, which was OK-ish. Anyway, coming home I thought, for hide use, I'd have to somehow find the money for a shorter, scope, until I remembered that I already have one - my old archery spotting scope:-

With a 50mm objective and a 20-50x zoom, it's perfectly adequate. It's widely available under the Yukon brand, and costs £59 - only £1 more than when I bought mine about 5 years ago. Try here. This time it costs more to buy it in the US. Spectacle wearers will have to remove them, as the eye relief is quite short, but even though I'm very short-sighted, it's not a problem even without any form of dioptric adjustment.

And at the risk of being uncharitable, to some birding is the new trainspotting! Two guys in the hide were obviously settled in for a long stay, making copious notes, and, from their conversation, seemed to be there most days. My first thought was "Get a life," but then it occurred to me that a great many youngsters could do with a dose of the patience and discipline it needs to sit in a freezing hide for hours on end.

For my next reserve outing, I'm going to Martin Mere, at Burscough, Lancashire - as soon as I can walk again!!

February 25 2007

Tomorrow - if the weather forecast is right - will be my first proper birding outing - to the RSPB's allegedly secret reserve at Inner Marsh Farm, Burton, South Wirral. Apparently, there's a bit of a walk from the car-park to the reserve - wouldn't you just know it - and a couple of steps at one point. Secret it may be, but that's no excuse for ignoring the requirements of the DDA regarding access!

February 23 2007.

Well, my RSPB membership pack's arrived, so weather (and health), permitting, next week I'll take myself off to the local RSPB reserve, Inner Marsh Farm.

The location is, because of its small size, a secret, and one has to apply for details by email. Rather unfortunate, then, that the details are posted on the Web, not once, but several times!! Mind you, as they apparently get around 30,000 visitors a year - an average of about 100 a day, it's either horribly crowded or the figures are wrong...

Among the RSPB goodies was a bird guide. Not as detailed as my Collins field guide, but perfect when all you want is a quick confirmation of what you're seeing, without the need to wade through extraneous pages.

So, as birding seems - all being well - about to take off for me, I have to decide how to run this page, and I suppose the best format is a reverse blog - with the latest entry at the bottom. If this thing gets big I may have to re-think this but, for now, that's how it'll be.

What I'm aiming for is not just personal reports of where I've been/what I've seen but, for reserve info, especially access information - vital if, like me, your walking ability is limited. The RSPB website show which sites are accessible, via the usual wheelchair symbol. However, most of us know that these aren't 100% reliable, and not really a substitute for on-the-ground experience. Of necessity, of course, this will - at least for a while - be limited to reserves within easy reach.

For those of you who, like me, live fairly close to a Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust reserve (Martin Mere, in my case), it's worth knowing that the concessionary membership fee is only £23, which would quickly pay for itself.