BinocularsBlog – Advice on Digital, Waterproof, & Compact Binoculars for Bird Watching, Sports, Astronomy, Night Vision, & more!

If you are looking for compact binoculars and don’t mind giving up a little of that “compactness”, your best bang for your optical buck is still one of the oldest compact binoculars design, namely the reverse porro prism. I’ve recommended several of these best value compact binoculars to friends and they all love them. These include the Nikon Travelite 8x25, the Pentax 8x25 UCF X II, the Nikon 8x25 Prostaff, the Bushnell Legend Ultra 8x26, the Vortex Vanquish 8x26 and more. Can’t bet any of them for the price.

For those that want to go right to the top in this binocular design, though, you get the awesome Bushnell Elite 7x26 Custom Comapct, formerly the Bushnell Custom Compact 7x26 which replaced the original in the Bausch & Lomb 7x26 Custom Compact. In terms of optics and build quality, any version the Bushnell Custom Compact binocular will please the fussiest optical purist and do it at only a fraction of the cost of those much more expensive premium roof prism compact binoculars. I know, because I own a whole case full of expensive roof prism compact binoculars as well as the original Bausch & Lomb Custom Compact 7x26 (in mint condition, mind you). Yup, I still love using my Custom Compact and, no, it is not for sale.

It’s snowing as I write this, though it is mixed with rain, so I doubt we’ll see anything significant for accumulation. Snowing on April 28, though? You have to remember this is the north woods and snow is a distinct possibility well into May. Some of the old timers, up here, tell me they can even remember one year where it snowed on July 4th. This spring snow doesn’t really bother me, though. It just feels right for this country, somehow, and it is certainly a trivial inconvenience compared to the tornadoes and horrible storms those poor folks down south having been getting this spring. My heart goes out to them.

When this inclement weather strikes, I am extra careful to keep the bird feeders full and I also make sure I have thrown some corn out on the lawn for the deer and the squirrels. In fact, I have become so consistent and regular in my feeding the birds and animals, that my backyard wildlife has become quite tame. It’s definitely added a personal touch to my birdwatching, not to mention providing endless opportunities for pics via digiscoping with my digital cameras and spotting scope and even my compact point and shoot digital cameras without a spotting scope. You don’t need much in the way of zoom, after all, when the deer follow you around the yard as you are throwing out corn or when the birds just hop over to the next feeder while I am filling one of the other feeders. As for my birding binoculars and birding spotting scope, I only need those to see birds out on the lake; I can walk right up to the feeder when I need to see birds, there, up close.

I am a little concerned that the deer, especially, are becoming too tame, but so far, so good. None of them were shot during hunting season and they will only let me get so close. They are still wild animals, after all, and that’s the way I would like to keep it.

We have Purple Finches nesting on our property and that is saying more than most people can say, since the Purple Finch, in the eastern half of the country, at least, only breeds in the north woods. Just seeing this close relative of the much more common House Finch is a treat. Yes, having Purple Finches nesting in your back yard is quite a birdwatching thrill.

I’ve been seeing a pair of Purple Finches through the binoculars and spotting scope, recently. They have been regulars to our bird feeders for some time, now. I’ve also discovered a couple of males singing their best on the few nice days we’ve had this spring. The song is definitely finch like, but noticeably different than the much more common House Finch you find in the suburbs. As for distinguishing between a House Finch and a Purple Finch when looking through the birding binoculars, the Purple is more richly marked; the House Finch often seems drab by comparison. This is especially true of the females and, in fact, it may be easier to tell these two species apart by looking at the females. A Purple Finch female (shown with male in pic to the left) shows a lot of contrast in her markings, while the House Finch female (pic on right) is much more subdued in her markings.

That’s no sparrow bill on that bird. No, indeed, that’s why the Pine Siskin in this pic of mine could not possibly be mistaken for a sparrow, though many a beginner has dismissed this “little brown bird” as a sparrow and therefore just too darn hard to identify. So, here’s a birdwatching tip of the day. When in doubt, check the bill on a bird.

Of course, that is sometimes easier said than done. In typical birding binoculars, that bill can be hard to see, especially if the bird is small, as with the Pine Siskin, or if the bird is at a distance. A birding spotting scope makes the job of checking detail on a bird’s bill much easier so all the more reason to add a spotting scope to your binoculars when birding. That spotting scope can also be used for some digiscoping – taking a pic through the eyepiece of a spotting scope (or even binoculars) with small digital cameras. That’s how I got this close up of the Pine Siskin at my feeders.

Keep in mind, though, that birding binoculars are still the main tool of the bird watcher, so that should be the first purchase for a new birder.

Sparrows or warblers? This is a question that birders sometimes ask of each other. Simply put, it means do you prefer birdwatching for sparrows or warblers? Both bird groups can be challenging in their own way and both groups are large enough and diverse enough to keep the birding binoculars busy for a long time. I have spent many years working both sparrows and warblers with my binoculars and even my spotting scope.

As far aesthetics go, if you want to see color in birds when you look through your binoculars, warblers are definitely your group, though some sparrow species are quite handsome, albeit in a more subdued way. As far as I’m concerned, though, sparrows win on the song category, so it’s a wash in the overall beauty department.

Much of the preference of one group over the other is a matter of habitat. Though there are exceptions in both bird groups, warblers tend to be forest birds and sparrows tend to be more open country birds. I greatly enjoy both types of habitat, so no preference, here.

In terms of opportunities in a day of birding, I can usually add more warblers to my list than sparrows, given good habitat during the peak of migration. If numbers are your game, warblers are your group.

As far of ease of spotting and observing birds, though, I’ll take sparrows any day. Love the way those birds stay close to the ground, as a rule, so no case of “warbler neck” at the end of the day from craning your head back all day to see birds high in the tree branches. I also love using my birding spotting scope and that, too, favors open country birding.

As for an identification challenge, most birders will say that sparrows are a bit more challenging, simply because you don't often get to use color as a convenient means of identifying birds. I can see their point, but I don't find sparrows or warblers all that hard to identify, anyway.

Sparrows or warblers? Forget it. I love birding for both groups. Why should I have to choose?

There was a time when there were no binoculars designated as astronomy binoculars and certainly no binoculars designed specifically for astronomy. What did people use for astronomy binoculars, then? The venerable 7x50 was the binocular of choice for astronomy in the old days and that size was also popular for marine applications as well as low light nature applications.

The 7x50 is still a useful binocular size for astronomy, but the market has moved on to giant binoculars with ever larger objective lenses for astronomy. Yes, the astronomy binocular market has definitely become more specialized and sophisticated. I have no problem with this, since I own and use giant astronomy binoculars, but I do worry that many people overlook the fact that a lot of astronomy can still be done with ordinary birding binoculars, hunting binoculars and even sports binoculars. I have, indeed, use many an 8x42 and, especially, a 10x50 for a lot of my astronomy. In fact, an old 10x40 birding binocular was actually my first astronomy binocular and it was more than adequate as a tool for teaching me the basics of binocular astronomy.

At my astronomy presentation, yesterday, I did not have a section on equipment because there simply wasn’t time and, besides, I am hoping to offer a follow up presentation specifically for astronomy binoculars and telescopes to also include some basic telescope accessories. I did, however, have my small refractor telescope and my Nikon 10x70 Astroluxe binocular on display and both got a lot of attention during our break, especially the astronomy binoculars. I guess the size of a large astronomy binocular makes it unusual and a bit more impressive than your typical birding binoculars, hunting binoculars, sport binoculars and so on.

I did mention binoculars, briefly, during my presentation, as a great way to view large open star clusters and noted that any binoculars can be used for that application since I was aware that most of the folks in the audience already owned binoculars. Binoculars are, after all, a great way to begin in astronomy. That’s the way I started some forty plus years, ago, and I still use binoculars to this day for astronomy. In fact, I am downright fussy about who I allow to even touch my Nikon 10x70 Astroluxe. You get that way about a good astronomy binocular.

How much binocular do you really need for birding? That depends on your goal and also somewhat on your skill as birder.

If your birdwatching goal is only to identify birds, then you will get all you need in a porro prism binocular for as little as $150 or so. This is the best bang for the buck in a porro prism birding binocular. For a roof prism birding binocular, the best bang for the buck is around $300-400 and that roof prism design typically means nicer handling and smoother focusing. On the other hand, if you want to see birds in their glorious best, the sky is the limit. Premium and expensive birding binoculars definitely make birding a more enjoyable and thrilling experience and that is reason enough to spend big buck on these binoculars.

Your skill is also part of the equation. An experienced birder needs less in the way of optical performance to identify birds than a beginning birder, but odds are that experienced birder has opted for a top notch binocular with excellent optics to enhance their birding experience.

Lastly, if you are itching to give bird watching a try, at least borrow a binocular and get out there and start seeing birds. It is a mistake to wait until you can afford an expensive binocular before you start birding. Getting out in the field with the birds is what birding is all about, no matter what you have for binoculars.

Not much in the way of birds to see through the binoculars, this morning. I’m not sure if this lull in my backyard birdwatching action is being triggered by tonight’s approaching snowstorm or if it is just one of those low spots you sometimes see during bird migration. Either way, this slow day with the binoculars is a drastic change from yesterday’s bird watching with me unable to go for more than five minutes without grabbing the birding binoculars or rushing over to the birding spotting scope at the window. What a difference a day makes during spring migration!

Back when I worked regular jobs with regular schedules, I often thought the ideal way to make a living would be a job that allowed me to take off, as I pleased, when the birds were “in” and work on days when they were not. After all, “Should have been, here, yesterday!” is an oft heard comment in the birding community. In some years, waiting to get out in the field with binoculars or spotting scope till the weekend and your days off meant you missed some of the best days of birding of the year. Ouch! Of course, now that I work from home and am basically semi-retired, I have the flexibility to follow the birds the way I have always wished I could.

Okay, you birds, where are you?

We had snow over the weekend, up here in northern Wisconsin, and it looks like we have another big storm ready to push our way in the next couple of days, too. What happened to spring? It is the last half of April, after all.

The lack of spring weather seems to be more an issue with me than the birds or my birdwatching, though, because our yard is just overflowing with birds and spring birds at that. The male Goldfinch in the pic, for example, is enough to tell me that it is late April, no matter what the weather forecast says. So was the appearance of the Northern Flicker, an uncommon bird in our conifer swamps, and a flock of the much more common Red-winged Blackbirds in the swirling snow on Saturday. Let it snow, I guess, as long as my binoculars and spotting scope stay busy.

We do need a change in weather to change what I am seeing in the birding binoculars and birding spotting scope, though. A south wind would do wonders for bringing some new birds in the yard and it would also do wonders for my spirit. It’s kind of hard to work up the courage to wear a spring dress when it is snowing outside.

Today’s spring birding report from the north woods.

We have a storm in the forecast, over the weekend and, surprise, surprise, it’s calling for snow. Have to remember, this is the north country and snow in the forecast is common for April and not even unusual for May. As to how the storm will affect my back yard birdwatching, my crystal ball says that it may blow in some new arrivals, today, so I will stay close to the spotting scope and will be sure to carry binoculars at all times.

This morning, I heard a Common Loon out on the lake! Wow! Yes, this is the north country and the loon is an icon in these parts, so you might expect every lake to have loons. Not so. Our, shallow, weedy lake is not prime habitat for loons, so this is a great addition to my back yard birding list. I have yet to actually see this loon in the birding binoculars or birding spotting scope, but I will keep trying and, of course, keep listening.

As for new arrivals in the yard, I spotted our first Red-winged Blackbird. Yes, Red-winged Blackbirds have been around for many weeks in most areas, but you have to remember that our lakes are just beginning to lose their ice.

We may also have a pair of Bald Eagles taking up residence on our lake. I have seen this same pair for a couple of weeks, now, working our lake on a daily basis. Now, how does one put out a welcome sign for Bald Eagles?

It’s getting to the point where I don’t dare put down the binoculars for fear I’ll miss seeing a newly arrived spring bird in the yard. In fact, I hesitate to stop looking through the birding binoculars long enough to write this because I just know that there is a new bird in the backyard waiting for me to see. Oh, yeah, my birding binoculars and my spotting scope are seeing a lot of use. I am in birdwatching heaven.

Just since noon, yesterday, new spring birds in the yard include Yellow-bellied Sapucker, Purple Finch (gorgeous colors), American Tree Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow and a lone Wild Turkey hen – the first turkey I have seen on our property. I did my best to do some digiscoping on this bird to add to my photo collection, but she just kept moving along at a good pace. I will put more corn out to lure her to a standstill long enough to get a pic in the spotting scope, next time she arrives. (That tom turkey in the pic, above, was taken last spring.) In the meantime, Junco, Fox Sparrow and Song Sparrow numbers continue to hold at good numbers. Our yard is quite a lively place, indeed.

Back to the binoculars and spotting scope. I have more birds to see.

Today’s spring birding report from the north woods.

Funny how I wrote, yesterday, that I expected to see more songbirds migrating through the area and then, not ten minutes after publishing yesterday’s blog, I picked up my binoculars and started seeing them. Of course, predicting that you will see some new birds migrating on a nice spring day in April is about as safe as predicting the sun will come up in the morning, but it does make me feel good, all the same.

The bird species of note was a Fox Sparrow, which I spotted in the compact binoculars, out at the edge of the yard, scratching through the leaves and pine needles, as Fox Sparrows tend to do as they search for food. The Fox Sparrow is, in my humble opinion, one of the handsomest of the sparrows and always a treat to see up close in either birding binoculars or birding spotting scope. This individual had a bit more gray on the head than the one in the pic, above (I shot that one last spring). Fox Sparrows do show a lot of individual variation.

Not to be outdone, a Song Sparrow, just happened to be sharing the same patch of forest floor. The Song Sparrow shows some similarity in coloring and pattern to the Fox Sparrow, but it is an obviously smaller sparrow and the markings are quite different when you take a closer look in the binoculars. The woods around our house are filled with the songs of this bird and nothing is sweeter to the ear.

Oh, did I mention? I also spotted some otters down on the lake through the spotting scope. I will always make room for otters in a birdwatching report.

Now that spring has arrived, here in the north country, hardly a day goes by that I don’t spot a new bird through the binoculars or spotting scope. Spring means birdwatching for me the same way that spring means fishing for some folks. In fact, I cannot imagine a spring without a day in the woods and fields, birding binoculars and bird field guide in hand.

I’ve spotted most of the new bird arrivals out on the lake in the form of waterfowl, such as the Common Merganser flock I spotted this morning, though I’m sure I will be seeing more warblers and other songbirds as the weather warms and insect activity increases. I did see my first warblers of the season, though. I was enjoying a little sunshine and fresh north country air on our screen porch, yesterday, when I spotted a Yellow-rumped Warbler, here and there, working through the birches. The males were at their colorful glorious best through my Nikon 10x25 Premier LX, which I just happened to have around my neck at the time, of course. Hey, this is spring, so one of my compact binoculars is with me, always. You never know when the next new bird will make an appearance, this time of year.

Spring is here in the north woods and it arrived full blown in just one week, it seems. We went from 90% snow cover to our current 10% percent snow cover and, at the same time, shifted from winter birdwatching into spring birdwatching. Not bad for one week’s work. Oh, yeah, my birding binoculars and birding spotting scope have seen a lot of action. Been a long time coming.

This is my first spring in the north woods and, despite my forty plus years of experience as a birder, there have been some birding surprises. Our lake, for instance, which I can watch right from my kitchen window with my binoculars and spotting scopes, is shallow and weedy. I expected, then, to see a lot of puddle ducks. Wrong. What I have seen for ducks, so far, on our small lake has been diving ducks – ducks we usually associate with big lakes and open water. Not complaining, of course, because it has been a real kick watching Bufflehead, American Goldeneye, Ring-necked Duck and Lesser Scaup from the comfort of my own kitchen. How many birders get to do that? Not many.

Like most birders, for most of my life, I needed to drive to big lakes, setup a spotting scope on a window mount or tripod and watch these ducks from a great distance. So instead of sipping my coffee from the comfort of my kitchen, as I now do, I used to sip coffee while sitting in the vehicle. Not sure if that is a good measure of how far I’ve come in life, but it sure tells me I am living in the right place.

Spring bird migration has begun! Now, that might be yesterday’s news for most folks, but most folks don’t live in the north woods like we do. Spring comes a bit later, up here. Hey, we still have a lot of snow on the ground and some ice on our lakes.

Yes, my birdwatching is now in spring mode. Yesterday, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a flycatcher out on my deck, but it flew before I could grab the binoculars for a closer look. Honestly have to say that seeing a flycatcher when there is still a lot of snow on the ground was a first for me. I suspect it may have been an Olive-sided, because we had a pair of those nesting in our yard, last summer, but I want a close look through the birding binoculars before I get too confident on an identification.

Out on the lake, we now have some open water and also some migrating ducks, in particular, a flock of Hooded Mergansers. Yesterday, I walked down to the dock, spotting scope and tripod over my shoulder and digital cameras in my pack in the hopes I could get close enough for some good pics, since I have yet to get a good pic of a Hooded Merganser.

No, I still don't have a good pic of a Hooded Merganser - the birds were too far, even for digiscoping – but I did get some pics that show Hooded Mergansers, if you know what these birds look like, that is.

Anyway, I can even some patches of lawn for the first time since November! Here comes spring in the north woods!

Open bridge design binoculars look a bit different, no doubt about it. Those two barrels connected only at the front and back take you a bit by surprise, first time you see one. For sure, as binocular body designs go, nothing could be more of a departure from the old classic porro prism binoculars of grandma’s day.

It all started with the remarkable Swarovski EL binocular (now the Swarovski EL Swarovision binocular) and quickly spread throughout the binocular world. Today, every major binocular manufacturer offers at least one open bridge design binocular model. So what is the big deal about this new binocular design? Why pay a bit more (and you will, compared to conventional binocular models in the same quality range) for an open bridge design binocular?

The answer is just a matter of picking one up and holding it in your hands. Binoculars with the open bridge design handle quite differently than conventional binoculars and most, but not all, users prefer the feel and balance that new design delivers. The first time I picked up a Swarovski EL was at a birdwatching festival, the first year Swarovski introduced the EL to the market. I was stunned, to say the least, by the way this new design just begged to stay in my hands. The binocular market has never been the same, since.

Are there negatives to the open bridge design binocular? The only thing I have encountered is an occasional model at the lower price points that focuses, poorly. It does take some costly precision and engineering to get the focusing mechanism to operate smoothly and effortlessly on open bridge binoculars. I’ve never had problems with expensive models, but I have seen it on cheaper open bridge design binoculars, so, if focusing is an issue for you, be aware of this tendency.

How to keep things in perspective amid all the political divisiveness that has recently plagued our beautiful state of Wisconsin? That is the question. I hope to share the answer with some friends from the Madison area when they come to visit, this weekend. They are physically exhausted, as are so many of my friends , both right and left, after the political battles of the last few months.

One of the things they need is peace and quiet. They will get that in abundance, up here in the north woods. They will also get handed binoculars (I have enough for everyone) and be treated to some top notch birdwatching, with yours truly as their personal guide and when we need more magnification than birding binoculars can provide, the spotting scope sits on my tripod, waiting for us to spot some birds out on the lake, which is just now showing signs of ice-out.

If the night skies permit, we will be replacing the birding binoculars with astronomy binoculars and the spotting scope with telescopes to do some astronomy. Nothing like astronomy for putting things back in perspective, as far as I am concerned.

If all this immersion in the natural world fails to soothe, there is always the hot tub and some local music as a backup plan. Lastly, there is someone available who has lived a long life amid both conservative and liberal extremes and knows that, behind the politics, people are still people and that means loveable, regardless of the hat they wear. She stands ready to calm those ruffled political feathers. That person is me, of course.

Okay, I want everyone to have a pleasant and soothing coming weekend and that is an order!

Like just about everyone who puts up bird feeders and does some backyard birdwatching, I keep a list of birds I see in my yard through the binoculars. Most, but not all, of these birds are exactly the species you would expect to visit a backyard feeder, at least what you would expect to see up here in the north woods. In my eagerness to add birds to my backyard bird list, though, I sometimes fudge a little as to where my back yard actually ends. That’s not an easy call, since we live on about 7 acres of black spruce bogs and have considerable frontage on our shallow weedy lake. Then, too, I can spot birds through the birding binoculars that are well beyond the border of our immediate yard. Do those count?

Yesterday was a good example. I spotted this Bald Eagle with my spotting scope sitting out on the ice (yes, our lakes still have ice), not too far from shore, waiting near a muskrat air hole in the ice. The distance was really too far for a good pic, even with digiscoping, so I apologize for the lack of quality, but I did get enough of a pic to show that we have eagles on our lake. Now, should I or should I not add that eagle to my backyard birding list?

As a rule, I never recommend home remedies to repair binoculars. Bo doubt about it, the do-it-yourself approach when it comes to repairing binoculars keeps the real binocular repair people in business, but they will be the first to tell you that they are less than thrilled when they get a box full of binocular parts from customers who just had to give it a try on their own. “Never take a binocular apart” are instructions that should be packaged with every binocular. Why? It takes special tools to dissemble binoculars and a ton of expertise to do the job right.

That said, I have made some minor, no tools required, additions, not repairs, to my binoculars that don’t involve altering or changing anything. Once in awhile, for instance, I will come across a binocular with twist up or push pull eyecups that has too much eye relief to be comfortable when the eyecups are in their full down position but too little eye relief when the eyecups are pulled out to the first stop. No problem, I just head to the hardware store, binoculars in hand and find neoprene O rings of the right diameter and thickness and then slip them under the eyecups to achieve an intermediate position with comfortable eye relief. Got a binocular with a diopter adjustment on the eyepiece and that darn eyepiece wants to twist off the correct setting all the time? I’ve had good luck with a piece of bicycle inner tube stretched over the base of the eyepiece to keep it in place. It doesn’t look the greatest on expensive birding binoculars, I’ll admit, but it does work. (Note that on compact binoculars, you may need to use the narrowest road bike inner tubes to get the right size and that you may need mountain bike inner tubes for full size binoculars.)

Funny how you adapt to something out of necessity and then discover that you really prefer to do things that way, anyway. I’m like that with eyeglasses and binoculars.

There was a time when it was tough to find birding binoculars or astronomy binoculars that you could use with your glasses still on your face. The problem was eye relief – the distance your eyes can be from the eyepiece on a binocular and still see the entire field of view. Simply put, on a binocular with limited eye relief, your glasses keep your eyes too far back from the binocular eyepieces to see the entire field of view. You can either settle for looking through a pinhole for a field of view or take your glasses off. So, naturally, I thought wearing contacts would be the ideal solution to this problem. With contacts, I could choose any binocular I wanted and not have to worry about the binocular eye relief problem.

It hasn’t worked out that way. Why? I’ve gotten so used to bracing my binoculars against the lenses of my eyeglasses for extra support and stability that I miss it when wearing contacts. Believe me, a little extra steadiness when using binoculars is very helpful. So take heart, eyeglass wearers of the world. Those glasses may actually provide you with an advantage when using binoculars.