E-Mail from Readers

So it's been a long summer without a whole lot of activity here at 600 Birds, but that sure hasn't slowed down the volume of inquiries I have gotten from regular readers.
Today we will spend a few moments answering your emails......

Chuck from Sheboygan, WI writes:
Great blog Ben! I've really been enjoying your bird photographs and the clever anecdotes that accompany them. My question to you is whether or not you have ever considered a career on television or in film?


Well Chuck, that's a timely question, as I've just wrapped up a short demonstration video of the Swarovski UCA digiscoping adapter for the Eagle Optics website.




This could prove to be a big breakthrough for me as my agent is now in negotiations with a company who makes frozen dinners marketed toward digiscopers. I'll be sure to keep the updates coming here at 600 birds.

Speaking of digiscoping, Claire from Port Townsend, WA sent this inquiry:

Hey there Ben! I've been a long time reader of your blog and was wondering when and if you are going to submit some of your photos to Swarovski's Digiscoper of the Year contest? I've heard that it's the place for digiscopers worldwide to show off their stuff!

Well Claire, your e-mail is timely indeed. It turns out I have not submitted any photos to the contest yet and the October 31st deadline is fast approaching! The good news is that I still have time to enter AND I can even submit digiscoped images that I've taken with my new Leica 82mm scope, such as this image of Surfbirds congregating on the rocky shores of Homer, Alaska:

If you have a moment, check out my entire gallery of images here, and give me feedback on any shots you think I should enter in Swarovski's Digiscoper of the Year contest.

New Photo Gallery

Greetings and Happy Friday to all the thousands of readers out there in cyberland . Thanks for once again tuning into the 600 Birds Blog.
I've got a few updates to share with you.
First off, I've moved my gallery of digiscoped photos here. This new space is easier to upload photos to and also more convenient for re-sizing and tweaking them. You'll find more images here than I had on the old Flickr site and it will be updated more regularly.

On a separate note, iconic blogger and fellow Eagle Optics employee Mike McDowell will now be bringing his wonderful insights and photographs to the Eagle Optics Blog. Follow that link to some great footage that Mike recently captured of a Barred Owl tranquilly sipping water from a puddle. The cool thing about that footage is that it was shot through a pair of 8x32 Swarovski EL binoculars.

Harlequin Duck

I was sorting out photos today (lots of them) and came across this nice photo of a Harlequin Duck that I took in Alaska this spring. Here in Wisconsin, we can occasionally see these birds way off in the distance, bobbing among the waves of Lake Michigan. On some of Alaska's inland streams, one is able to get nice close up looks of this spectacular bird.
Enjoy!

Midwest Birding Symposium...you really should attend.

Follow this link for a quick 22 reasons why you should be in Ohio this September. I've even managed to convince my wife to attend this event, which happens to fall on our 10-year anniversary. Like I told her, it will be fun AND romantic!

Digiscoping VS DSLR

Wow, I've been absent from this space for awhile and for those 3 or 4 readers that may still be following 600 Birds, thanks for hanging in there. For parents in particular, summers tend to be time vacuums filled with lazy days at the local pool, camping trips, canoe trips, family reunions, soccer leagues, etc, etc... (notice that I didn't mention blogging in the aforementioned activities))

Even though I have been slacking as of late, many of the other birding bloggers out there have stayed the course and are producing insightful and regular postings, most of which I check in on daily. Some of them even have kids.

One of those bloggers who seems to be able to pull off amazing feats of travel, publishing, blogging, business running, kid parenting, bird festival organizing, keynote speaking, music playing, etc..etc...etc... is Bill Thompson. This brings me to the point of this post. Bill recently got back from a trip to Trinidad and recently blogged about his experience digiscoping with the new Leica Televid spotting scopes, and how that rig performed compared to his DSLR. For the full scoop, I recommend you check out the latest post at Bill of the Birds.

I've also been digiscoping with one of these new Leica spotting scopes and they are truely superb. I haven't gotten around to editing newer shots, post-processing, cropping, etc... but when I do, rest assured you can see more here. For now though, I've got to get the kids to horse camp.

New Leica Birding Blog

Jeff Bouton with Leica Sport Optics has started a new blog here. If it wasn't for Jeff, my list of North American Birds seen would probably be around 400 species or so, rather than 597. That guy is a seriously talented birder. He also happens to be a lot of fun to hang out with, so I consider myself fortunate to be able to go birding with him on a regular basis.

The shot above was taken this year in Homer, Alaska, shortly after we saw a Bar-tailed Godwit(below).

Eagles in Alaska

For the past few years, I have been fortunate enough to travel to Homer Alaska in early May to attend the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival. While the main attraction is of course, shorebirds, I always associate Homer with eagles. These large fish and carrion eaters are abundant and very approachable almost anywhere on Alaska's Kenai peninsula. Their abundance and commonality reminds me of our Robins here in Wisconsin. Like everything else in Alaska though, these yard-birds are bigger.

Is it a coincidence that the Bald Eagle's plumage mimics one of the fundamental backdrops of the Alaskan landscape, the snow-caped mountain?