BinocularsBlog – Advice on Digital, Waterproof, & Compact Binoculars for Bird Watching, Sports, Astronomy, Night Vision, & more!

Bird size is one way we often use to identify birds, since bird size is often the most obvious difference between closely related species. Size is never the only difference, true, but, out in the field, size may sometimes be a good clue when more information is needed for bird identification. However, using size to identify birds is fraught with danger and is a method that all good birders use with a healthy dose of caution. Size is a feature best saved for last or when all else fails.

The problem is that we humans are not that good at estimating absolute size of things in our environment when they are at a distance. We do fine with objects within arm’s reach, but that’s about it. Objects out at a distance in our environment are subject to far too many variables of light, shadow, perspective and so on to make size estimates reliable. This has been supported by plenty of research. So when are we safe using size as a way to identify birds when we are out to do some birdwatching?

Size is reliable only when it is relative to objects of already known size. If that shorebird in question is standing next to a Killdeer, you can check the size of the Killdeer in your bird guide and get a good idea of the size of that unknown shorebird. However, even this is subject to caution, since the two shorebirds must both be at the same distance. If not, your estimate is not reliable; move on to another feature you can use for identification. Be especially careful of this foreshortening issue when using birding binoculars or birding spotting scopes. Magnification in our binoculars and spotting scopes robs the observer of depth perception; magnification can make objects appear to be at the same distance when, in fact, they are not and it only takes small differences in distance to make your estimate unreliable.

The Hairy Woodpecker and the Downy Woodpecker are very similar in terms of appearance, but actually quite different in terms of size. In the pic, both are at the same distance and the difference is obvious. However, out in the field, even this much difference in size is not always obvious, especially when you only catch a fleeting glance at the bird as it moves through the branches. Hey, that's the fun of birdwatching, though. It's not always so easy.

Birding binoculars are, of course, the basic tool used by all birders, but, if you know your birds, there are plenty of opportunities to identify birds that do not require binoculars. In fact, you can identify a great number of birds from your vehicle as you drive cross country, as I did over the weekend, on a visit to St. Paul, Minnesota and never uncase your binoculars.

New to my 2010 birdwatching list, is the Wilson’s Phalarope. Spotted a whole flock of these shorebirds, feeding in a marsh, in suburban St. Paul as we were stopped at a light. No birding binocular needed to spot Phalaropes when they are feeding – they swim in circles, but you can also identify Phalaropes from their distinctive silhouette. However, in the off chance that you might spot a much rarer Red-necked Phalarope swimming with a group of Wilson's, you should take a look with a binocular when you have a chance. The light changed before I could get my binoculars uncased in this instance.

Next addition to my 2010 birding list was the Canvasback. This is one of my favorite ducks and it, too, has a very distinctive silhouette that allows you to identify it without binoculars from quite some distance, but the Canvasback is really too pretty a bird not to view with binoculars. In a spotting scope, I’ve spotted these in mixed flocks of ducks at tremendous distances.

Saw quite a few Bald Eagles, too, on the way to St. Paul. Most folks probably just think hawk when they see eagles, but the shape and proportion of wings and body size make any eagle easy to distinguish from a hawk, also no binocular needed.

Even easier to spot and distinguish from a hawk are Turkey Vultures. The distinctive V shape they create by the way they hold their wings can be seen from incredible distances without the aid of a binocular.

All in all, there are a good many birds that you can identify long before you raise your binoculars to your face.

Bill retires in a year and, along with doing a lot of camping, we have been thinking of selling our Milwaukee home and heading either up north our out west where the skiing, biking, fishing, hiking, camping, wildlife photography, birding, canoeing, astronomy and, well, everything we like is better. It will give us a better opportunity to use our digital cameras, telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes and so on, of course, but it will also give us a chance to just plain get the smell and sounds of the city out of our blood and breathe some fresh air. Nothing against Milwaukee – it’s been a great place for both of us and our home is about as far from the hustle and bustle of the city as a home can get and still be in the city – but, there are signs that it may not suit us, anymore.

So off we go, cruising the on line real estate ads for homes out west or up north. I know that most folks think of heading south when they retire to avoid the winter, but we are not most folks. We are outdoors folks and winter, to us, means time to ski, snowshoe, ice fish and all those other wonderful things you do in the winter where we live. My mother headed right back up to the far north when she retired from her career in Nebraska and I am my mother’s child. Forty below and the calls of timber wolves sounds great to me.

Bill and I are going to visit his daughter in St.Paul, over the Easter weekend and I have been busy packing. Packing for a trip is one of those chores I detest, but I have learned, the hard way, what happens when you get sloppy. The downside to all my planning is that I have a tendency bring something along, just in case and that tendency can quickly turn a weekend trip into an expedition. Not good.

Of course, the digital cameras are packed and ready to go and I am also taking one of my favorite film cameras. This photographic safari will be family photography, of course, but I also hope to get some landscape photography done, along the way, so I will be taking a selection of short and standard camera lenses in the camera bags. I am leaving the big telephoto lenses behind, so no need for the tripods. Image stabilization in digital cameras does have its advantages.

Not sure, though, if we will have a chance to do any birding or astronomy, so I will be leaving the birding binoculars and astronomical binoculars, behind. However, I will, pack my compact binoculars in my purse, just in case I need to do some birding. That’s the beauty of compact binoculars – when in doubt, just put a compact binocular in your purse and go. Try that with an astronomy binocular.

Having been in the binocular sales for more than twenty years, I have seen many binoculars come and go. For the most part, these binoculars were similar to one another, just a matter of quality and performance, of course, price. After all the binocular market has always been very competitive, so a truly different and great binocular does not come around that often. There have been a few, though.

One of the binocular series that I do miss are the old Zeiss Classic series, the venerable Zeiss 10x40 Classic, the less popular Zeiss 8x30 Classic, Zeiss 8x56 Classic and, my favorite, the Zeiss 7x42 Classic. There was nothing revolutionary about those old Zeiss binoculars; in fact, the external focusing on the 7x42 and 8x56 were a bit retro. Still, those old Zeiss Classics were the benchmark of what a premium binocular should be. They weren’t labeled Classics till just a few years before they disappeared; they were just Zeiss binoculars back when that was the only line of binoculars Zeiss produced. I loved the 7x42 Classic for its balance and super pleasing wide field of view with great optics. As with that 8x56 Classic binocular, you could spot the profile of the Zeiss Classic 7x42 profile from a great distance; the silhouette was distinctive. That was one binocular I wish I had bought when I had the chance.

Early in the 90s, the only binoculars in production to earn the title of premium or best binoculars, in terms of performance and quality, were European binoculars. Then along came that first Bausch&Lomb Elite (which survives as the quite different Bushnell Elite). It was slender, sexy with optics that gave the best European binoculars a challenge. The first Bausch&Lomb Elite binocular was revolutionary in that it announced to the world that a binocular, made in Japan, could compete with the best European brands. That’s another one I wish I had bought.

I was at a birding festival, back in the late 90s and stopped by the Swarovski table to see what had drawn such a crowd. When it was my turn, Clay, the Swarovski rep, handed me an odd looking binocular; it had two barrels that were attached only at the front of the barrels and the back of the barrels; the center was completely open. When I picked up that first Swarovski EL binocular, though, I was floored with how sweet it felt in my hands and, even better, the optics were breathtaking. That first Swarovski EL was truly revolutionary for its now much coped open body design. (That was one that didn’t get away.)