Digiscoping Bluebirds & Red-tailed Hawks Cavorting

Dawn and I took the opportunity afforded us by gorgeous weather and temperatures in the 60's to head to the Maryfrances Bluebird Haven in hopes of seeing some of our very colorful state birds. The haven has a mile-long circuit trail that winds through grassy pastures and woodlands, with plenty of opportunities for birding. I brought my scope and Dawn's Kodak CX6230. The combination have proved to be a useful digiscoping duo in the past, and they came through again today, though my inexperience made the pictures less than optimum. Still, it was a good learning session, and I got some decent, if off-center (and vignetted) images.

We no sooner got out of the car than Dawn spotted a raptor in a nearby tree. A Coop or Sharpie, perhaps? She checked it out in her binoculars whilst I deployed the Kowa scope. The verdict? A falcon! Falco sparverius to be precise-- an American Kestrel. I went for my camera, and snapped a couple of shots just as it took off:




Boxes for the Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) are sprinkled throughout the park's several acres in what looks like an old pasture. New plantings of young pine trees lent a verdant spalsh to the faded grassland. I was surprised to find a bluebird perched at the apex of one of the conifers several dozen yards away. Dawn let out a delighted cry when I pointed him out-- though they're the state bird of New York, they're not often seen unless one goes searching for them, so this was a real treat. I decided to try some digiscoping, to see if I could get a good picture. With the sun at my back, viewing the camera's LCD screen was challenging, and the lens barrel of the CX6230 is not a good fit for the Kowa scope's eye cup, so I ended up with a vignetted image. The good news is that the bird showed up pretty well, too:

It looked like at least two pair were in the area. I scanned the nest boxes with my binoculars but didn't see any heads poking out of them, so it's impossible to say how many may have been occupied.

The only other birds in the area were some European Starlings, and a great many swallows (I think they were Barn Swallows, but I can't be sure). We watched them dart through the air for a while, then decided to walk the trail. There were plenty of sparrows to see in the woods. Frogs and Mallard ducks took their leisure in a swampy pond just beyond the treeline. On the backside of the trail I found the Kestrel again while Dawn went to commune with a couple of horses on the adjacent farm. I set up my scope, and the Kestrel obliged me by leaving its tree and alighting on a pine much closer by. I swung the scope around and grabbed the camera for more digiscoping:


As you can see, scope-to-camera alignment is not my strong suit! I'm going to see if perhaps I can fabricate a bushing that will fill the space between the camera barrel and the inside of the eye cup on the scope's objective lens. I think that'll help with the alignment and with focusing. My other option is to purchase some kind of bracket that will hold the camera and scope in alignment, but that will make it much harder to quickly switch between looking through the scope by eye, and digiscoping. Of course, more practice will probably help on all fronts...

Eventually the Kestrel flew beyond a line of trees, so we bundled up our equipment and completed the trail circuit, ending back at the haven's small parking area. I put the scope away and was about to do the same with my binoculars and camera, when three Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) showed up and began cavorting with one another in the air. It reminded me very much of the play activity I've witnessed among fledgling Peregrines, but I'd never seen hawks engaging in such behavior. Out came the DX6490, and I started clicking away:





The rising thermals took all three of them beyond the reach of my camera lens, and eventually even our binoculars were rendered useless by their ever-increasing altitude. The haven is close by our house, though, so with sights like this, you can be sure this won't be our last visit.