Tag Archives: digiscoping

A Yellow-crowned Night-Heron in Orange County

Sub-adult Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

We recently visited Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve to look for the reported juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. This is one of those location, location, location things. In Florida, a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron excites nobody. But in California, where for decades the nearest breeding population of these night-herons was down in Baja somewhere, it’s a pretty uncommon bird. In recent years, a small Yellow-crowned Night-Heron population has become established in an apartment complex in Imperial Beach, CA, in the shadow of Tijuana. Even so, a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron away from there is newsworthy in southern California.

At the time, this immature bird constituted the second confirmed record for Orange County. The first one showed up in 1977 at San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary. We see Yellow-crowned Night-Herons regularly now. This suggests the presence of a more local breeding population. But back then, a lot of local birders chased this bird.

The Heron was Elusive

We went on a Saturday morning, with someone who had seen the bird only the day before. Thus, we were confident of success. Naturally, we couldn’t find the stupid bird! We circled the entire pond under the bluff there. We checked out every immature Black-crowned Night-Heron on the property, without any success. Finally, it turned out that the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron was actually roosting among a large group of Black-crowned Night-Herons in the trees right where we started. The night-heron cooperated, but only grudgingly. It gave us long looks at fairly minimal distance. But it perched in a dense tangle of branches that always obscured it. Eventually we got a few photos.

A Gift Burrowing Owl

Wintering Burrowing Owl

Next, we searched the ground squirrel burrows around the mesa looking for returning Burrowing Owls. Eventually we found one bird. The didn’t get great views because the bird never completely emerged from its burrow. But at least we found it. Later in the day, someone else found a second bird. Burrowing Owls are often hard to locate. If you don?t know how or where to look for them, overlooking them is easy.

Burrowing Owls are tough to come by in Orange County. Widespread development pretty much gobbled up virtually all grassland habitat in the county. A small breeding population of this species subsists in an area closed to the public. Also, scattered wintering birds pop up as winter migrants, like the Bolsa Chica birds. Hopefully, these two will stick around for the upcoming Coastal Christmas Bird Count!

The pictures were taken by digiscoping with a Kowa TSN-884 spotting scope and a Nikon CoolPix P6000 (Night-Heron) or a Kowa TSN-883 with a Nikon CoolPix P300 (Burrowing Owl). The optics were mounted on a Manfrotto MT055CXPRO3 carbon fiber tripod with a MVH500AH pro fluid digiscoping head.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

It’s fall in southern California, so birders keep busy looking for the odd vagrants that show up in pocket parks. Some might stay long enough to become Christmas (count) presents. Fall is the time to look for sapsuckers here. In Orange County, CA, it’s possible to see all four species of sapsucker. Red-breasted Sapsuckers predominate here; locating a Williamson’s presents a challenge. We found an unreported juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in Canyon Park on Saturday, 20-NOV-11.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker versus Red-naped: the Difficult Species Pair

Yellow-bellied and Red-naped Sapsuckers resemble each other in appearance for much of the year. Typically in fall, a juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker stand out, due to a major difference in molt patterns between the two species. Juvenile Red-naped Sapsuckers molt into their first basic plumage prior to migrating while young Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers retain their juvenile feathering all winter, not beginning to look like adults until late March or even April. Thus, any primarily brown sapsucker in winter is likely a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Still, you might want to take a close look at it just in case. If it has a paler brown head, or no prominent white wing coverts, it might be a female Williamson’s Sapsucker.

Juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Veteran’s Park

We drove up to Veteran’s Park in Sylmar to look for a male Williamson’s reported there. After a long search, we found many trees bearing obvious evidence of sapsucker workings, but only two birds. A shy Red-breasted kept company with another unreported juvenile Yellow-bellied. This bird shows the characteristic stiff tail feathers that help the bird perch more stably on the trunk. The pale red fringe on the crown is not a photographic artifact. This bird hid red buried in the crown feathers, hints of color it will show more boldly later. We took this photo with a Canon S95 digital camera on a Kowa TSN-883 spotting scope using a DA-10 adaptor.

Season of Shorebirds – Summer 2011

The summer of 2011 is shaping up to be a fabulous season of shorebirds in California. The season kicked off with the appearance of the Lesser Sand-Plover in Orange County, CA, a cooperative bird that stayed a total of 8 days in late June, delighting many observers.

Shorebirds to the North

Little Stint

July has been even better with the appearance of two Little Stints, both in northern California. On the 23rd, Kimball Garrett discovered another one at Piute Ponds on the grounds of Edwards Air Force Base in northern LA County. On the same day, a Wilson’s Plover was found at the Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve in Carpinteria. Unfortunately it was in a restricted area where only a limited few could get access.

The Little Stint was too good to pass up, so a group of us got up before dawn the next day and made the trek north, arriving on the site by 7:15. The bird was re-found within minutes of our arrival and we began watching this rather reddish adult shortly after. After about an hour of digiscoping pictures and video, one of the observers got a phone call saying that Guy McCaskie had found an adult Curlew Sandpiper on the salt basin at Imperial Beach, south of San Diego. You could look at the birders around you and just see the wheels turning as they all began calculating time and distance, or perhaps gauging spousal approval.

Shorebirds to the South

Curlew Sandpiper

For us, it was a no-brainer: we were going! Even with a stop or two along the way, we made it to the site just a bit before noon. We pulled together the cameras, scopes, tripods and binoculars and made the ¼-mile trek out to the site. As we arrived, we could tell something was off from the assembled crowd of birders. Strange and angry mutterings like “!*^$&% Peregrine Falcon!!” and worried bits of encouragement like “It’s got to be here somewhere!” suggested the nature of the problem. With over 20 birders searching, no one found the bird for at least an hour.

At that point, we decided to break for lunch and come back later, so we drove off in search of fast food. As it turned out, the food wasn’t fast enough: it had just been delivered to the table when the phone rang. The bird was back! Unlike the stint, this wasn’t a life bird for either of us, so we opted to hurriedly finish our sandwiches before charging back out there. Apparently everyone had heard. The crowd of birders had more than doubled, and the mood was ebullient. The bird itself was calmly feeding on the near edge of the water, evidently oblivious to the mob of admirers mere yards away. It put on quite a show, feeding and preening and occasionally lifting its wings.

Season of Shorebirds Continues

Since then, two more great shorebirds have shown up, although both are way further north again. On the 26th, a Red-necked Stint appeared in Coos County Oregon. On August 5th, Ryan Merrill found a Wood Sandpiper at Samish Flats, WA. For those of you on the left coast, you might want to hit any marsh, lake, bay or beach with any kind of suitable habitat. And for those of you from more distant locales, you might want to check your opportunities for standby flights. Who knows what could show up in a year like this!

Digiscoping with Zeiss

Digiscoping with Stephen Ingraham of Zeiss

Great Blue Heron swallowing a small eel

In preparation for the upcoming Zeiss digiscoping classes to be offered through Sea & Sage Audubon in October 2011, we were lucky to be visited by Zeiss’ own digiscoping expert, Stephen Ingraham. Stephen taught us how to use the adaptor and optimize the camera and scope for photography. We took Stephen to the mouth of the Santa Ana River on a gray and overcast Sunday morning in June. Stephen reviewed with us how to best align the camera and scope and then we were off.

Visiting Talbert Marsh

At Talbert Marsh at relatively low tide, we found strangely little to look at initially. A few Western Gulls lounged on the beach and some Killdeers screamed warnings to no one in particular. A somewhat ratty Double-crested Cormorant looked neither crested nor double… Then a Great Blue Heron showed up and started fishing in a mat of eel grass within 30 feet of us. Rather appropriately, the heron captured a green eel. Even in that grayish light, the Zeiss Diascope 85 spotting scope equipped with a Diascope Digital Camera Adaptor II and a Canon PowerShot S95 camera, picked up frame-filling detail as the heron subdued and swallowed its meal.

Juvenile Least Tern at Santa Ana River mouth

Least Terns

Our next stop was at the river mouth, near the California Least Tern and Snowy Plover breeding enclosure. Most of the adult Least Terns were way out on the beach, or out to sea fishing. However, we found this juvenile bird well on its way way to independence. Mom and Dad still fed him though. He luckily evaded the coyotes and Peregrine Falcons thus far. They would happily make lunch of him! You can see how the camera picked up subtle details in the shading of his feathers.

A Black-crowned Night-Heron

Returning to the car, we found this adult Black-crowned Night-Heron fishing right next to the path. With one of the broadest distributions of all birds, Black-crowned Night-Heron is hardly rare. But what a handsome one! This one still had one pale filoplume dangling from its crown and looked quite snazzy. Stephen says that when the gods of bird photography throw a suitable subject your way, never turn it down. So we worked at filling our memory cards a bit more. Two different users tried out this digiscoping rig for the first time. And both got decent quality shots even under less-than-ideal conditions.

A Lesser Sand-Plover in Orange County

Lesser Sand-Plover

Discovery of the Lesser Sand-Plover

Local cell towers began vibrating early last Saturday morning with the news that a local birder discovered a Lesser Sand-Plover at the extreme south end of Bolsa Chica Preserve in Huntington Beach, Orange County, California. The 11^th state record, this Lesser Sand-Plover was a first for the county, and a life bird for many potential viewers. What followed was the usual scramble as people who could, dropped everything and barreled towards the spot. Those of us who couldn’t (and we sympathize as we numbered among them) watched the email boards in agony.

When news of a Peregrine Falcon incident broke (the moan was almost audible county-wide) and the search for it in Bolsa’s inner bay began. At 10 AM, the Lesser Sand-Plover reappeared briefly, then flew off again and disappeared. Then late that afternoon, confirmation arrived that it returned where initially appeared, pushed south by the rising tide.

Lesser Sand-Plover stretching its wings

Getting to Harriet Weider Park

At that point, we were finally able to do something useful about it. So we each packed a different digiscoping rig and headed for Harriett Wieder Regional Park. This spot overlooks the vast mudflats the bird frequented by the Lesser Sand-Plover. The location presented a challenge as there is no close approach to the birds. Worse, the flocks roosted almost 150 yards away, and the light came from behind the birds there in the evening. It wasn’t a question of taking publication-worthy photos; in this case, that was never a rational possibility. What we hoped for was documentation quality shots, and to that end, we were all gratified with some success.

Lesser Sand-Plover

Why Digiscope?

People ask why you would bother with digiscoping; the Lesser Sand-Plover was a perfect example of why you would. Only distant views were available. The distance was well beyond the ‘reach’ of a superzoom camera or a DSLR with a conventional long lens. No closer access was available to anyone without a special permit to enter that section of the park. Only the 1000-4000 mm equivalence of digiscoping allowed us to obtain even passable images under these circumstances. The bird spent long periods of time unmoving, allowing us to take many exposures. We could even adjust to compensate for the challenging lighting in between without hurrying. When it emerged from its resting spot among the pickleweed, the camera shutters went off like machine guns! And everyone there was digiscoping. When we finished shooting, we went back to just enjoying this spectacular bird.

Judge the results for yourselves. Using three different cameras and spotting scopes from two different manufacturers, we took a great many shots. A little digital editing, and this is what we got: shots that more than suffice for documentation. No, these won’t grace the cover of any glossy birding magazines. Still they are plenty good enough to confirm the bird as a Lesser Sand-Plover. And what a bird!

Digiscoped Video – American Oystercatcher

On Saturday, May 22, 2010, I followed up on a report of an American Oystercatcher at a few locations in Laguna Beach. I tried Crescent Bay first, and was fortunate to find five Oystercatchers on the rocks below the point. There were three Black Oystercatchers, while the other two looked pretty good for Americans.

What are they?

Black and American Oystercatchers interbreed and their hybrid offspring can be anywhere on a cline from pure Black to pure American. We had to evaluate these birds for purity. J. R. Jehl, Jr. developed a rating system used by ornithologists to determine where on the cline a given bird falls. Because there are several genetic variations that are involved, we use ten different characteristics to judge the birds. Nine of them have a score between 0 and 4. The belly coloration goes from 0 to 6. A bird with a score of 0 to 9 rates is a pure Black Oystercatcher. One scored from 30 to 38 is pure American, and everything in between is a hybrid.

I took this video with a Nikon CoolPix P6000 attached to a Kowa TSN-884 spotting scope at a distance of 96 yards measured by a Zeiss Victory PRF laser rangefinder.

Is Either an American Oystercatcher?

The Oystercatcher in the center of this video has white upper tail coverts (Jehl’s score 4), basal half of all retrices were white (4), chest sharply delimited black to white on upper chest (4), belly entirely white (6), undertail coverts entirely white (4), thighs entirely white (4), greater secondary coverts 6-15mm (3), white present on some of inner primaries (3), underwing coverts entirely white (4), axillaries entirely white (4). The Jehl’s score for this American Oystercatcher is 36 out of 38.

The hybrid Oystercatcher, seen on the left as the video starts, has upper tail coverts black (Jehl’s score 0), retrices mainly black with some white in the vanes (1), black chest bordered by jagged edge on upper chest (3), belly entirely white (6), undertail coverts mainly white (3), thighs entirely white (4), greater secondary coverts 6-15mm (3), white present on secondaries but not primaries (2), underwing coverts mainly white (3), axillaries entirely white (4). Jehl’s score is 28 out of 38, so close, but not close enough.

Nix Nature Center: Winter Birding

The James and Rosemary Nix Nature Center opened on St. Patrick’s Day in 2007. Oddly, it remains to this day, one of the better-kept secrets of Orange County open space. Conveniently located, this unit of the Laguna Canyon Wilderness Park is always well worth a visit. I have been stopping by periodically ever since it opened, often going for an hour or so before work during the week.

Although its official hours are 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, I often find it open earlier than that, which is really nice! I go mainly for the birds, of course, but anyone interested in hiking or relatively easy mountain bike trails will find something to their liking here. And in wet years, the wild flowers can be spectacular too. Just a piece of advice: if you plan to visit Nix Nature Center on a weekend, get there early. To keep the place from getting loved to death, parking is deliberately limited to four small lots.

Digiscoping at Nix Nature Center – White-crowned Sparrow

Digiscoping Birds

I was working on a review of the Leica D-LUX 4 digiscoping system. Happily, the Nix Nature Center is a great place for pictures. It was a gray overcast March morning when I stopped by. Phainopeplas were busy spreading mistletoe to every available sycamore branch. Small flocks of Zonotrichia sparrows (just Golden-crowned and White-crowned this year) sang and fed nervously in the open spaces around the parking lot.

This sub-adult White-crowned Sparrow teed up for me in a luxuriant laurel sumac. First I took a picture with just the camera. The sparrow is that white dot at the top of the bush. But with the Leica Apo-Televid 82 scope in line, the charms of this young bird become much more apparent. These photos were not cropped in any way, to make the magnification of the unit more apparent. Always check the sparrow flocks carefully in winter. I’ve seen Lincoln’s, Savannah, Chipping, and Brewer’s Sparrows mixed in with the White-crowns, and a Black-chinned Sparrow in early spring. Generally, they’re feeding right out in the open on the ground.

California Towhee at Nix Nature Center

Local Residents

Generally, California Towhees feed near the parking lot, kicking the mulch and leaves with both feet as they root around. You can see the characteristic ‘pumpkin butt’ and hints of buff around the base of the heavy seed-eating bill. The canyons often echo with the loud “chink” calls of this common resident. A close cousin to the California Towhee and Spotted Towhees live here year-round. But I’m still searching for my first wintering Green-tailed Towhee there.

Western Bluebird, Nix Nature Center

Willing to take advantage of a nest box hanging anywhere, Western Bluebirds usually feed from low perches. They even frequent the parking lots unless crowds of people have chased them into hiding. I found this female hunting from on a bare sycamore limb. As usual, she was too shy to permit close approach. But the extra “reach” of the digiscoping outfit easily brought her in close without the need to disturb her further.

Nix Nature Center Habitat

Nix Nature Center sits on typical scrub land, with patches of oak-sycamore community in the wetter areas. However, a short walk from Nix brings you to other habitats. The network of trails links up with the other 6600 acres of the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. These include Dilley Preserve, Willow, Sycamore and Laurel Canyons, and farther away, Crystal Cove State Park. Walking under Laguna Canyon Road takes you to Barbara’s Lake, the only naturally occurring lake in Orange County. There you always find Pied-billed Grebes and herons. Occasionally, Least Bitterns nested there in past years. So when you get a chance, check out this wonderful little park, and see what you can find.

Digiscoping with the Leica D-Lux 4 System

We received a D-Lux 4 digital camera and several adapters from Leica to go along with the impressive Apo-Televid 82 scope (see scope review here) and have been happily field-testing it for several weeks now in preparation for a full review on the digiscoping outfit. This post is not a full review. Rather it gives people an idea of the capabilities of this adaptable and really easy-to-use outfit.

The rig consists of a D-Lux 4 digital camera, the digiscoping adapter and the Apo-Televid 82 scope and tripod. Given the weight of the scope, I opted for a full-sized carbon fiber tripod to counter-balance it. A carbon fiber tripod has the advantage of damping down vibrations. This is important when taking pictures, especially without a cable release. Unscrew the aluminum ring from the camera lens to reveal the adapter mounting threads. The adapter fits over the eyepiece (in this case, the 25-50x zoom eyepiece) and fixes in place with a set-screw. And that’s it! The whole operation takes about 30 seconds.

White-faced Ibis, digiscoped with Leica D-Lux 4 system

Photography

The first question most folks want to ask is: what kind of pictures can you take with this rig? Well, as it turns out, pretty good ones! For example, take a look at the detail in this basic-plumaged White-faced Ibis from San Joaquin Marsh Sanctuary. In winter, White-faced Ibis lack the white facial skin that gives them their name. Also, mottling appears on the head and upper neck. Note the pinkish tint to the tip of the long decurved bill, and the facial skin. The appearance of the back and wings suggests this bird undergoing pre-alternate molt. Highly iridescent green feathers replaced some of the dull older feathers on the head, belly and neck. While shooting, this bird got too close for photography, and to take these pictures I had to move back!

Whimbrel at rest

Image Richness

Another question is whether the image richness is sufficient to support really fine details of plumage and pattern. These resting shorebirds provided a good example proving it does. It also shows that the subtle plumage details stand out against a bright background.

Look at the feather detail in this Whimbrel. Note the pale buffy fringes of the wings and back and the warmer cinnamon tones of the breast. The rufous crown stripes stand out. The white eye ring pops, and the lower mandible is pink, while the legs are bluish gray. Even the rippling reflection below is rich with detail. The preening Long-billed Dowitcher is just a bit too far in front to be fully in focus. Still, some great feather details are visible in it too. Look at the dark-centered, pale-edged wing coverts to the dark chevrons on the sides of the belly. So, even in challenging light, surprising image detail is available.

Perched Vesper Sparrow

Portability

How cumbersome and slow is the Leica D-Lux 4 digiscoping unit? Well, it’s really not. In fact, using this unit, I can often capture sharp images of small and rapidly moving birds. This group of Savannah Sparrows kept hopping up onto a barbed wire fence and alighting for a few seconds before spooking and dropping back down into the grass. But with a bit of luck and timing, the D-Lux 4 still caught this Vesper Sparrow, an uncommon bird in Orange County, among them. Note the characteristic white outer tail rectrices and black inner ones. The wind ruffled its head feathers, giving it a ‘punkish’ look, but the thin white eye ring is visible around the black eye. The depth of field is fairly good here too. We took this photo in 16:9 ratio mode, which yields a broader shot.

Lesser Goldfinch feeding

This feeding male Lesser Goldfinch provides another example. This bird was only about 25 feet away when I took these shots. But he kept hopping from plant to plant in search of more succulent bits to munch. You can see a piece of his meal clinging to the edge of his beak. Our west coast LEGOs have greenish backs with black streaking. Whereas those of the interior sometimes show completely black-backs. And of course, the Danish LEGOs come in many colors and can be used to build amazing things? The camera and scope picked up the subtle markings of the bird along with details in his claws along with the brilliant orange hues of the flowers and their green foliage.

Conclusions

So that should answer your questions. Digiscoping with the Leica D-Lux 4 camera and Apo-Televid 82 scope is incredibly easy. Additionally, it’s a lot of fun. If you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s because I stole this unit and went on the lam!

Vortex Razor Spotting Scope: Digiscoping

Example of what you see without the Vortex Spotting Scope

Many spotting scopes these days provide the attachment options for digiscoping. Consequently, this offers the ability to attach a digital camera and use the scope as a telephoto lens to take photos. Digital photo adapters vary widely in their design, ease of use, and speed to deploy. They also range in their compatibility with respect to the cameras they can accommodate. The Vortex Razor Spotting Scope is a relatively recent entry in the spotting scope market, providing high-quality optical performance at a very reasonable price (see Vortex Razor Scope Review). Vortex offers a digiscoping adapter for use with the Vortex Razor Spotting, so I took it out in the field to give it a try.

Digiscoping with the Vortex Razor Spotting Scope

Photo taken with Vortex Razor Spotting Scope

Digiscoped with Vortex Razor Spotting Scope

I went out this past Sunday to Laguna Niguel Regional Park with the Razor scope equipped with its 20-60x zoom eyepiece, the Vortex Razor Digital Adapter, and my Canon 40D camera with a 50-mm lens. This was my first attempt to digiscope with this equipment combination, so the pictures here are mostly to show what is possible and do not represent fully optimized photography with this rig.

An Osprey eating lunch at the park provided an interesting and challenging subject for this demonstration. The bird was sitting in a eucalyptus tree in rather unfavorable lighting. So as an illustration, we first took the photo (above) with the camera only. This is to show the level of zoom with and without the scope in line.

Next, we zoomed the eyepiece on the scope to about 40x and took the same photo (right) through the scope. As a result these photos give a good comparison of what a dramatic difference shooting through a spotting scope makes. This camera/scope combination at this magnification is equivalent to about a 3200-mm lens. This will vary from 2000 to 4000 mm at this level of zoom depending on the type of camera. We have not cropped these photos in any way. They are full-frame shots. We have only resized them to fit the pages here.

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