Down in the dumps with digiscoping

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

Many people get dressed up, go to dinner or a party and drink

champagne to celebrate the start of a new year. Not us, at least not

this year. We went to the city dump in Brownsville, Texas, to

digiscope.

This deserves a bit of explanation. First, digiscoping is the

hottest thing in bird photography. It involves connecting a digital

camera to a spotting telescope using an adaptor ring. This allows

really close-up photography. The equipment isn’t nearly as costly as

buying a long telephoto lens for a camera.

Vic is the primary birder in our family, but I’m the chief

photographer. We combine our interests to collect bird pictures that

Vic uses for his birding classes. Vic bought me a Minolta Dimage 7

digital camera a couple of years ago. With its telephoto optical

zoom, it gets great pictures of birds that are within 20 feet. But

most birds won’t let us get that close, so we’ve been frustrated in

our attempts to get good pictures of many species.

We tried using my Minolta with Vic’s birding scope, but the

Minolta isn’t the camera of choice for digiscoping. We learned from

friends who are masters of the technique that a Nikon Coolpix 4500 is

the best camera for this purpose, so I got one for Vic last year. But

without a proper adaptor to secure the camera to his old bird scope,

we didn’t have much luck.

Santa brought Vic a Swarovski HD80 bird spotting scope this year

with an adaptor for the Nikon camera. If we couldn’t get good bird

pictures with this setup, there was no hope for us.

We dashed over to Huntington Central Park to try out the system.

We were thrilled with the results. We got portraits of pigeons and

ducks that were so sharp we could see individual barbs on the

feathers.

Lucky us, Santa had included airplane tickets to Texas for a week

of birding. Like Southern California and Florida, that area is a hot

spot for birders because it has so many species of birds not seen

elsewhere in the U.S.

First we had to pass through airport security. With two cameras, a

laptop computer and the birding scope in our carry-on baggage, we

were given extra scrutiny. Off with our shoes, jewelry, watches and

jackets. We took everything out of the carry-on luggage and showed

the security people that we had no hand grenades, assault rifles,

nail clippers or other hazardous devices hidden on our persons or in

our luggage.

Having cleared security, we waited in the Room of Noisy Children

with Severe Behavioral Disorders before being tight-packed in the

flying sardine can that passed for our airliner. We had picked the

height of last week’s storms to fly, so the flight was delayed on

takeoff. Naturally, we missed our connecting flight in Houston. After

much confusion, many long lines and an interminable wait, we managed

to snag seats on the last flight out that night to San Antonio, our

final destination.

We figured that our next adventure would be a visit to the Land of

Lost Luggage, but our suitcases had made it onto our original

connecting flight and were waiting for us. Successfully reunited with

our clothes, we were ready for a week of bird photography. We hopped

into our rental car, a hop that actually took more than an hour, and

drove to the Bass Inn at Choke Canyon State Park, arriving well after

midnight.

The motel manager said he’d leave an envelope with a key taped to

the door, but he didn’t. Since the office had closed at 10 p.m., we

were left in the cold. Vic looked in a box marked “Key Drop” and

found a key to the office. He let himself in, selected a room key at

random and checked us into one of the worst motel rooms we’ve ever

seen. From curtains half off the rods to threadbare and stained

chairs and bedding, to the smell of wet dog that permeated the room,

the place was consistently seedy. But we were there for only one

night, and we’d already paid for the room, so we stayed. Besides, we

were in Texas range country with no alternatives. Other

accommodations on the trip were far superior.

Over the next few days, we drove to Rockport, Brownsville and

McAllen, staying a night or two at each place. On our first day of

digiscoping, we got what appeared to be spectacular photos of a

caracara, a vulture-like falcon. But when we examined the pictures on

the laptop that evening, we saw that they were all out of focus. We

fiddled with settings on the camera and took pictures of other

species the next day. They were in focus but lacked the composition

that makes a good photograph. That brought us to the afternoon of New

Year’s Eve and the Brownsville town dump. We had hoped to get photos

there of a Tamaulipas crow, but the rare bird wasn’t there that day.

We didn’t find anything to photograph at the McAllen sewer ponds on

New Year’s Day either.

Digiscoping is a technique that we have definitely not mastered.

By the time this column is in print, we’ll be back home, but as of

press time, we’re still searching for the perfect bird photo. We can

hardly wait to get back to Bolsa Chica to continue practicing

digiscoping.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].