The Vintage Birder

Recent Shaftesbury walks over the past week on the Breach Common and Castle Hill trying out my new/old roof binoculars Carl Zeiss Jena Notarem 8x32b MC. As you can see I was lucky to get a pair in very good condition. The serial number  6428067 - dates them at 1985. The case was very clean too. The binoculars laid down. Adverts from the 1980's  They   seem very good indeed, are good size and particularly clear, I will probably alternate using them with my Carl Zeiss Jenoptems 8x30W.  The usual birds were seen. Bullfinches always a pleasure to see, (The bullfinches actually have been showing theirselves very well, the lovely male with a pinky-red breast down near the farmhouse at the top of a copper beech tree, and especially today) -  (20th July 2023).   Red Kite, two in one morning, the Buzzard hanging over the valley between the common and Duncliffe Woods. Other singing birds as usual Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Song Thrush, a Treecreeper was seen as well and C...

Over the past three weeks I have purchased more second hand books some nice old ones and some slightly newer books;  British birds by W.H. Hudson. This book has some wonderful Archibald Thorburn plates in it, I love the way earlier ornithologists wrote. My love for Poyser books never fluctuates and with a recent cheap purchase off ebay of Rare Birds in Britain and Ireland by J. N. Dymond, P. A. Fraser and S. J. M. Gantlett. There is another book with the same title but written by different authors. Bird Life of the Seasons by W. Percival Westell again there are some beautiful plates in this book. The Year of  Sitting D angerously by Simon Barnes. He stuck a chair at the bottom of his Norfolk garden and watched everyday for a year during covid. A Patch made in Heaven by  Dominic Couzens. A dairy of the birds he saw on his local patch. Mereside Chronicles by Charles F. Tunnicliffe.  What can I say about Charles Tunnicliffe probably one of the best nature artists ...