Binoculars

After a recent short visit to the Tarangire and spending some time with guides I felt that I would like to write something about binoculars, but not so much what a binocular is but what an effective guiding tool it becomes if used properly. A common thing I saw is how little some guides use their binoculars, which I can’t understand as mine, was glued to my face almost all the time. Binoculars become a vital tool when you are in the field guiding and if you use them properly can play a big role in what you will find and what you could tell and show your guests. It can also help you interpret useful and different information to your guests, telling them what you see or can see through binoculars. A common mistake in guiding is jumping to conclusions and many of these mistakes or miss identification could be avoided by just spending a bit more time looking through your binoculars.

With binoculars you will notice the pretty blue above the eye

There is nothing better than sitting with a group of animals or maybe a pretty interesting bird and just watching them through binoculars, this is when you notice animal and bird behavior and often things that you don’t always read in a book. A good example is the Little Bee Eater it is a fairly common bird seen in the parks and absolutely worth stopping next to and showing your guests and everybody will admire its beauty. When looking at it with binoculars and getting your guests to do the same you will also notice another hidden color this bird has which is the most amazing blue above its eye. You can then go further and watch it hunt, sitting on a favorite perch with a clear view where it can scan the air for any flying insects. After catching something it will often return to the same perch and smack the insect against a branch until it is dead and can be swallowed. If he caught a butterfly you will also see how he first discards the wings before swallowing.  All of this is really interesting stuff to see and show your guests, and all it takes is a few minutes of looking through your binoculars and interpreting what you see and this you can do with almost any other animal.

 Another important use for binoculars is to stop and scan your surroundings especially if you are battling to find stuff, my favorite saying when guests come back from a drive and say “We saw everything this morning except a Leopard” is that it does not mean there was no leopard you just did not see it! Sometimes you drive through an area and you think to yourself “Man there must be something interesting here” and if you stop, switch of the vehicle and just do a good thorough scan with your binoculars you will often find that there is something special.

It does not mean there was no Leopard, you just did not see it!

From far away just another sausage tree, but looking through binoculars, something special!

Another fine example of scanning, we found this Lioness out on the Lemai Plains in a small Balanites after stopping and scanning.

So next time when you are out guiding try and use your binoculars a bit more then normal and you will see it makes a huge difference, it opens up a whole new world of hidden things and by getting your guests to do the same it makes them feel more part of the whole experience, after all, you did not bring your binoculars along for nothing!!