SNAP!

I got up early on the Sunday morning to go on a birding walk.  Our birding leader suggested we practice our binocular skills every spring.  For two weeks, he said, practice your snap for 4 minutes a day with your binoculars.  The snap is looking at an object with your bare eyes and bringing the binoculars up to your face without moving so you don't have to search through the binoculars for what you were seeing.  He suggested we start with larger objects and then go to small.  Start with a car, he said, and then go to a headlight on the car.  Then move onto a moving car. After that a headlight on a moving car.  He said with two weeks of practice, we will find birding much easier.  I will  have to give this snap practice a try.  I also think I deserve a better pair of binoculars.  My Bushnell 10x42 are adequate but not real good for color and in dim light.  On our bird walk we barely moved.  From the deck of the dining hall we saw a scarlet tanager, black and white warbler, chickadees, blue jays, robins, Baltimore Orioles, goldfinches, a Palm warbler, crows, and a LeConte sparrow.