Santa dropped by the house the other day. While it is not uncommon for him to stop by in May or June for a bit of birding out on Sauvie Island followed by an iced tea out on our back porch afterward, at this time of year he normally only makes his customary midnight visit in late December. Nevertheless, much to my surprise, there he was on the front porch with two large boxes.
“Ho ho ho!” he said. “How’s it going, John?” (It was the middle of the day so I was the only one home at the time.)
“Hey Santa! What brings you around? Aren’t you pretty busy this time of year?” I asked.
“Boy howdy! You better believe it!” he said. “Lot’s to do and not much time left to get it all organized. I just wanted to drop by to bring you something. You’ve been a very good bird watcher this year John, so you are getting an extra special present that I thought I should get to you so you can get out in the field with it before the weather turns to reindeer poop.”
“Wow, thanks Santa!” I said. “Come on inside. Can I get you some tea?”
“Thanks, but I can’t right now; too much to do.” He replied. “Besides, I stopped at the little joint just down the highway and grabbed a double espresso on the way here.”
With that, he put down the boxes he was holding, hopped back into his candy apple red Prius, and headed on down the road.
I whipped out my trusty Swiss Army knife and cut the tape on the first box. It was a Swarovski carbon fiber tripod.
“Cool!” I thought; actually, I think I actually said it out loud.
I cut the tape on the second box. In it I found three smaller dark green boxes. The first contained a Swarovski ATS 80mm HD spotting scope. The second contained a Swarovski 30x eyepiece (my favorite eyepiece flavor). The third contained a Swarovski DCA digiscoping adapter.
“Holy…!” I exclaimed (well, you know very well “holy what;” but there are kids that read this blog).
And with that I was busily engaged for the rest of the afternoon and on into the evening fiddling with my new digiscoping rig to be sure I was ready to deploy it in the field the very next morning.
The results from the first day’s use were, if I may say so myself, not too shabby:
Now, am I honestly suggesting that you go out and pick up a complete Swarovski digiscoping rig for the bird watcher in your life? Well, if that person has been particularly good this year and you’ve got the resources to do it – sure I am. However should you find yourself feeling just a little “economically recessed” this holiday season, then why not consider buying them a digiscoping adapter for the scope they already have?
After all, most bird watchers these days already own a digital camera, and quite a few also already have a spotting scope. So if they are not already active digiscopers, you can give them the gift of digiscoping this holiday season with the addition to their gear bag of the digiscope adapter fitting their existing scope.
If your favorite bird watcher uses a Swarovski scope, you can find information about what they will need on the Swarovski website. Those seeking an adapter to fit a model of one of the other fine spotting scope brands should visit the Zeiss, Kowa, Leica, Nikon, Pentax, Vortex, Minox, or Bushnell sites accordingly.
Peace and good bird watching.
