Am I the only one to feel intimidated by birders walking around with expensive Leicas and Swarovskis hanging round their necks?
I get perfectly good images with my £160 Opticron - what's wrong with all these people, don't they know you don't need to spend several hundred pounds on a set of bins...or is it an ego thing?
I've just come back from a few days at Titchwell, where nearly everyone was wearing Swarovskis. I really felt like an inferior species amongst them.
Is this what birdwatching has come to these days?
It used to be about what car we owed, or which designer clothes we wore. Has birdwatching finally been sucked into the same game of one-up-manship?
Before many of you begin replying with hatemail...read on.
Three days ago the worst happened, an eye cap of my beloved Opticrons fell off. I knew it time to buy a new pair. I spent ages chatting to a lovely lady at the RSPB shop at Titchwell (Give Lynn a pat on the back) who patiently helped me chose a nice pair of RSPB-badged bins for £279. I was delighted, not wanting to spend more than £300.
I had been out using them for a little over an hour when I knew I had to take them back. The image wasn't as bright as I had hoped for and I had a sense that it could have been crisper. So I went back.
Really out of a sense of wanting to prove something to myself I said to Lynn, "let me have a look throught those Swarovskis - lets see how good they REALLY are"
The moment I put them to my eyes, my whole world changed. I could hardly believe my eyes, and my jaw must have hit the floor. They were an awesome set of optics!
In that moment, I knew I had to eat my words, cast aside my prejudices and swallow my pride. These were truly amazing binoculars.
I bought them. Can you believe it - I actually bought them!!
I wasn't sure which was the most bizarre, the fact that I had spent that amount of money - or that I had become the very birdwatcher that I had scorned for so long.
I too now possess the Swaro jewellery. I too now feel part of the club. But it is not about wearing a badge, of making some kind of status statement...it is simply the recognition that I had found the best binoculars I had every seen.
All you Swaro and Leica users out there - please accept my apologies for all I have said and thought up till now - for I too now (finally) take my hobby as serious as you guys.