TLS800 photography workshop in England

So I spent much of last week and the weekend in a bitterly cold England and got a miserable cold for my troubles. The coldest day was probably Thursday when we had planned to spend much of the day out in the field taking photos with the TLS800 telescope photography system.

We headed out to Weirwood Reservoir in East Sussex (just south of East Grinstead), to the greeting of an icy wind and temperatures that felt like a good -10°C. not exactly ideal for photography.

Out on the water were some Cormorants, Widgeon, Tufted Duck and a couple of Great Crested Grebes. Making for our only decent photographic subjects were some tits on a bird feeder and a few mallards in front of the hide.

All taken with the Swarovski Optik STM80HD spotting scope, TLS800 telescope photography adapter, and a Canon 5D mark II.

To give an impression of what the photos would look like with a normal 50mm lens:

Richard Sibley (AP Magazine) trying to get some action shots of tits.

Happy birding,

Dale Forbes

Flying Mallards digiscoped

Here are some Mallard photos I took while out at Bodensee, just a few minutes before the Goldeneye digiscoping photos.

It is so easy to take our common birds for granted, but Mallards really are beautiful.

Here is a larger version of one of the Goldeneye photos:

All photos digiscoped with the Swarovski Optik STM80HD spotting scope, TLS800 telescope photography adapter and Canon EOS 5D mark II.

Happy digiscoping,

Dale Forbes

Weekend birding and Autumn migrants

The weather was lovely on Saturday morning and so I headed down to the Inzinger Gaissau to see if any new migrants had turned up.


Last weekend had delivered two Wigeons (Pfeifenten), about five Pochard (Tafelenten), and a very shy group of five Teal (Krickenten). We also heard a Water Rail (Wasserralle) calling from the western-most reed beds near the railway line, and the day before, I had seen a Cormorant (Kormoran) for the first time here.

This weekend, however, there were no signs of the Wigeons, Pochards or Teal (they seem to have just been passing through), but there were unusually large numbers of Mallard (Stockenten) and a Cormorant fishing about. The Little Grebe (Zwergtaucher) numbers have now gone down again, after a peak at about 30-35 individuals at the end of September.

(a poor photo of Wigeons - they really were playing hard to get! this photo was taken in a rush, looking through a bush as they buzzed by)

There are still some Barn Swallows (Rauchswalben) about and the Chifchafs (Zilzalp) are still calling. It seems rather late for them to still be here - there are already considerable numbers of Barn Swallows in South Africa 6000km away!

The most interesting sighting of the day was groups of up to 50 Skylarks (Feldlerchen) feeding in the Maize stubble fields just to the south of the pond. This is the same area where scores of Yellow Wagtails (Shafstelzen) were hanging out in the freshly ploughed fields in spring.

Happy birding
Dale Forbes

Finally, the Acrocephalus get here!

I had been monitoring my local patch every few days to see when the Acrocephalus warblers get back. The reed warblers had been singing their little heads off in Lago di Garda at the beginning of May, but alas, they seemed to be taking their sweet time to get here.

Heading down to the pond last Saturday (17 May), I did not here a thing. Well, at least there were no Acrocephalus calling. But the little Tufted Ducks (Reiherente) were looking decidedly gorgeous in the afternoon light. Fieldfares, coots, a couple of reed buntings (Rohrammer) and some Magpies kept me amused but I also tried my hand at getting some diginocked photos of the various creatures. As the evidence clearly demonstrates, I am merely starting out on this whole digiscoping thing. In my defence, I think trying to hold a pair of binoculars steady, get the little camera up to the eyepiece, and follow a moving bird all at the same time is not all that easy.

As the day started to wind down (must have been about 8pm-ish) it happened! One sole reed warbler belted out a song. Ducks forgotten.

But alas, he didn't sing again.

A little later, I found two singing marsh warblers (how they look like the African marsh warblers!) belting out a song to a couple of onlooking moorhens (who were shyly hiding in the dense reeds).

There are evidently people who can tell the reed and marsh warblers apart just by getting a good look at them. I am not one of them. Not even close. I have given up (at this early stage) trying to tell them apart. I just learnt the song. Sooo much easier. Now lots of birders freely give that advice to other – particularly beginner – birders: just learn the calls, lad, it is so much easier. Well, frankly, I suck at memorising calls. I struggle to remember my wife's voice let alone those of the hundreds of European, Central American and southern African birds I have tried to learn.

My response was natural (for a silly bird person). I used my cell phone. When the wife phones, I hear marsh warblers. colleagues=reed warblers, other friends=icterine warbler, etc.

Windows XP now sounds like a veritable forest of competing bird sounds. I am pretty sure it annoys at least some of my colleagues. But frankly, I'll survive ;-)

Happy birding!