Birding Optics & Gear Expo!

Your narrator stands knee deep in sedges, way back in the Okefenokee Swamp of Georgia. It goes without saying that a pair of binoculars hang around my neck. Those bins were put to good use on that trip, as I ogled everything from Sandhill cranes to gators to red-headed meadow katydids.

Good optics are a must for birders, or any natural history enthusiast. There are myriad options, and it's not often that one can find most of the top optics experts gathered in one building, with the whole range of their wares.

Warbler-watchers peer into the underbrush along the fabled Magee Marsh bird trail. Come May, and this place will bristle with birders armed with optics.

This weekend, April 4 thru 6, marks the second Birding Optics & Gear Expo. Orchestrated by Bird Watcher's Digest, the expo brings together the greatest names in optics: Celestron, Kowa, Leica, Swarovski, Zeiss, and more. CLICK HERE for details.

Members of the Kirtland Bird Club conduct a "sea watch" along Lake Erie at Perry Park in Lake County. A good scope is essential for picking out distant jaegers (we saw seven this day), scoters and other goodies.

The Birding Optics & Gear Expo takes place in the heart of Columbus, Ohio, at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. There couldn't be a better place, as there's plenty of interesting vistas to test that potential new scope out on, and lots of things to train your new binoculars on.

The edge of this road at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge bristles with scopes. These birders are seeking Upland Sandpipers.

There's probably not an optics-related question that would go unanswered at the Birding Optics & Gear Expo. The place will sport the top experts in the field, and they love to help people better understand the nuances of binoculars, scopes, and other field equipment.

Shorebird watching usually requires a scope. Being as a good scope is often a rather costly acquisition, having the opportunity to take a test drive is appealing, and smart. They'll have a long line of scopes set up at the expo for you to test out.

Your blogger is flanked by world dragonfly authority Dennis Paulson (left) and another dragonfly expert and ace birder, Bill Hull. We were using our binoculars to better observe and study free-flying dragonflies. Close-focusing binoculars are fabulous tool for observing insects. I often use mine to better locate interesting plants in tough to reach locales, too.

This was a scene from one of the First Ohio Ornithological Society conferences, at Shawnee State Forest. The group surrounds snake expert Doug Wynn (with white bag), who is coralling a large Timber Rattlesnake. Keeping one's distance is prudent, but binoculars allow one to count the snake's scales. By the way, the next OOS conference is at Shawnee, and you won't want to miss it. Details HERE.

Try and make it to the Optics Expo. The complete scoop is RIGHT HERE.

Birding Optics & Gear Expo: March 23 & 24

Be there or be square! The first ever Birding Optics & Gear Expo takes place Saturday and Sunday, March 23 and 24 right smack in the middle of Ohio, in Columbus. The experts at Bird Watcher's Digest are behind this, so you know it'll be good. These are the people who orchestrate America's best birding event, the Midwest Birding Symposium, after all!

All of the big optics companies will be on hand: Leica, Zeiss, Swarovski, Vortex, Celestron, and more. I am especially pleased that Midwest Photo Exchange will be in the house. They've got the coolest camera shop around, and that's where I get all of my photographic gear. They are a treasure trove of everything photographic, and the employees know everything there is to know, it seems, about photography.

Photo courtesy inhabitat.com

The venue is the sleek and slick Grange Insurance Audubon Center, just south of downtown Columbus. It's worth the trip just to see this place!

"Test driving" optics before buying is important, and you'll have plenty to point them at right outside the building. Being that it's mid-March, things won't look quite this green but this is the view outside the center's back doors. The local Peregrine Falcons make frequent sorties over the grounds, and the nearby Scioto River attracts plenty of other birds. CLICK HERE for an article that I wrote about this site, last fall.

Admission is FREE! Just come on down between 9 am and 4 pm on Saturday, or between Noon and 4 pm on Sunday. The complete lowdown is RIGHT HERE.