Sunday Afternoon Digiscoping
Having gotten caught up on all my writing and my lovely wife needing to use the computer, I pulled on my official RSPB Pulborough Brooks Reserve fleece, grabbed my digiscoping rig, and headed out toward the Dike Road in Scappoose to do a bit of a digiscoping workout. As the weather was cool and dry after a few solid days of rain, the birds were plentiful. However as the sky was still overcast, the light was a little less than ideal. Nevertheless, I’m rather pleased with some of the images I managed to record.
The flooded fields offered quite a variety of ducks that were more or less cooperative. Northern Pintails make particularly good digiscoping subjects and their color and pattern make them quite visually interesting while their rather calm demeanor prevents them spooking easily.
American Wigeon on the other hand, are quite skittish and spooked immediately as soon as I got out of the 4-Runner. It took some time for a few to return and get into a good position for their photos to be taken.
A little further down the road I spied this little American Kestrel sitting on a wire. I hurried up onto the dike to get this straight-on shot. The light was quite difficult so I used a spot metering technique to improve the details when recording the image.
A similar technique was used to photograph this Eurasian-collared Dove. These are not a native species to the northwest Oregon but have become quite common in the area; especially along this section of this particular road. I suspected I might find one or two here and I was not mistaken.
Finally, before the light got too tricky, I headed on to some open fields beside the dike where I found around a dozen Great Egrets. While digiscoping this bird and some of its companions, I heard Sandhill Cranes overhead. None were seen on this day. Maybe next time…
Equipment list:
Swarovski ATS 80 HD spotting scope
Swarovski 25-50x W eyepiece
Swarovski UCA (Universal Camera Adapter)
Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS camera
Swarovski Carbon CT101 tripod
Nice shots! I especially like the kestrel.
Nice shots, John. Well done!
Beautiful! Your persistence paid off in spades, I’d say.