Finally caught up - well mostly anyway – on both sleep and work after last week’s Texas Bowl trip, I headed down to Scarborough Marsh this morning. I began shortly after dawn at Eastern Rd, and was greeted by an adult Bald Eagle. No larks, longspurs, or buntings however.

Then, over at Pine Point, I spent some “quality time” with a most cooperative Black Guillemot, right off of the dock.

I snapped these photos by holding my digital point-and-shoot camera up to my binoculars.

Not bad, ey? However, good, bright light, no wind, and a very close, cooperative bird made these shots possible. Most of the photos that I have shared with you on the blog in the last year or so have been using this technique (such as the vulture and shrike in Texas from yesterday’s post). Every now and then, I also “digiscope” by holding my camera up to my spotting scope. I have been frustrated in the past by a number of different adaptors that I have tried, so I have stuck to “hand-holding” - a most inefficient technique.

In addition to checking what was around the marsh this morning, I also headed down to meet up with Stephen Ingraham from Zeiss Optics. One of the perks of writing product reviews for Birding Magazine, is that I get to play with fun new toys. Occasionally, I even get a sneak peek at a new product before it “hits the streets.”

Such was the case this morning, as Stephen provided me an opportunity to check out Zeiss’s new DC4 digital camera-eyepiece. Instead of holding – either by hand, or with one of those clunky and cumbersome adaptors – a digital camera up to a spotting scope’s eyepiece, this is an eyepiece with a built-in camera.

A “normal” fully, field-worthy and top-quality eyepiece (and a nice, bright, wide 40-power wide-angle to boot) that allows you to use the scope “normally.” The only difference is that there is a framing outline in the field of view, along with a focusing ring (basically it allows you to fine-tune the eyepiece for your eyes, much like the right-eye diopter does on a pair of binoculars).

The 4-megapixel camera, complete with an LCD screen (although it would be nice to have a higher resolution screen to double-check the quality of the shots), is built in to the eyepiece, alleviating the need for carrying a camera and an adaptor. And, the DC4 weighs only about twice as much as a standard eyepiece – so in other words much less than a camera and most adaptors.

So, using the scope “normally,” with the eyepiece, and focusing “normally,” you can then, with a remote control in one hand, snap a photograph of what you are looking at. Although there is a noticeable delay in the shutter, which one would have to get used to compensating for, I was impressed by the simplicity of the set-up, its ease-of use, and its field-worthiness (it’s even weather-proof, if not fully submergible). Plus, because you can follow the birds using the scope as you would without a camera, you have an opportunity to score great flight shots- the bane of most digiscopers!

Despite my inexperience with the product, and my inexperience with finding birds through an angled scope, I was able to snap these shots from Ferry Beach of a White-winged Scoter and a Horned Grebe. The second image of each was “lightly cleaned up” using Photoshop. (By the way, unless otherwise notes, any photos I post to this blog are unedited, except for cropping and/or resizing). Unfortunately, by the time we arrived here, the cloud cover had thickened up. I would have loved to see what the DC4 could of done with the Guillemot from earlier!

While this was far from a perfect product – and since I wasn’t doing an in-depth review this morning, I wasn’t splitting hairs on details – this is really yet another revolution in the birding industry. For now, the limiting factors will be cost and the fact that it only works with a Zeiss Diascope (although the Diascope is a great scope indeed, I know I’m not ready to buy a brand new scope!).

But, it really is amazing to me how rapidly technology is advancing on birding. For example, I am currently reviewing a PDA-based field guide and an Ipod birdsong software product. Personally, I have never been a big gadget-guy, but my current role as editor of Birding’s “Tools of the Trade” Department has thrown me into the fire. (I have already reviewed a digital birdsong identifier, called the Song Sleuth, for example).

But, when it comes down to it, I am a birder first (and a techno-gadget reviewer and writer a distant second), so I next headed over to Grondin Pond, packing “only” a scope, binoculars, and notebook (the paper kind – although admittedly a somewhat high-tech waterproof paper!) to enjoy the lingering ducks here, including the continuing Canvasback hen, 12 American Coots, 9 Ruddy Ducks, 4 Ring-necked Ducks (my favorite), and a smattering of both Lesser and Greater Scaup – plus lots of American Black Ducks and Mallards.