Reporting here on the off chance that a Kite Strings reader might not have been following the updates I've been posting at:
Swarovski ATX spotting scope system
I did score my eBay target:
Swarovski Optik ATX/STX/BTX 95mm Objective
223927098723
2020/03/03 06:19:31 UTC and took it off the FedEx driver's hands half past 2020/03/07 - 12:13 local.
You'll be able to see the listing for a while by:
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- Swarovski Optik ATX/STX/BTX 95mm Objective
- See original listing
There were only two other bidders - both of them the kinds of idiots who place bids with more than about half a dozen seconds to go. My damages were:
1291.00 - Winning Bid
0035.00 - FedEx
0077.46 - Maryland state tax
0014.99 - Auction Sniper (max charge) - four seconds
1418.45 - Total
I was prepared for $1602.89 counting the shipping - but not the state tax which came as a nasty surprise. This was the earlier/first edition of the hardware and part of me was hoping I'd be outbid. Current delivered new in the box from B&H - $2059.00. And there's a way to beat the tax.
utahtimpanogos
Swarovski ATX/STX 95mm Objective. Condition is used. I am the original owner. This objective has never been dropped or damaged. It has been used frequently, but it is in excellent condition. The 95mm objective is spectacular. I have never found anything that compares. Yet, at nearly four pounds by itself, it is simply too heavy for how I use it. I will miss this piece dearly, but I will always remember to good times. Feel free to ask questions. Shipping costs include carrier costs, additional insurance, shipping supplies, and expert packaging of this beauty.
Had a bit of a correspondence after the sale.
The only difference that matters any is that Swarovski introduced it with their Swarovski Standard Foot and then bailed to the Arca-Swiss standard - which is DEFINITELY the way to go. But with the equipment I have now - which is exactly the same equipment I'd select tomorrow if money were no obstacle - the substantive difference is zilch.
And if I'd gone with a new one I'd have been kicking myself for having blown $640 on a foot (with a price difference between the 85 and 95 Objectives of three hundred bucks less than that). And used 95 Objectives on eBay come up a bit more often than hens' teeth. The timing on this one was divinely inspired. And everything on this baby is as pristine as it would be after three or four careful field setups.
I actually wasn't tuned into the Model/Foot issue until about the twentieth time I'd scrolled through Utah's photos and Number 6 finally registered. Sure glad I did finally catch it 'cause otherwise I'd have been majorly pissed at myself twenty minutes after extraction from the box.
Spent a lot of time playing with this new toy within a fifteen yard radius of the front steps. Set up the 95 ATX side by side with the 85 STX (Angled and Straight ocular modules) and checked out various targets. Pretty much exactly what one would expect, predict and if you had to pick one to purchase new it would be hard to go wrong flipping a coin. The ideal two person air travel birding trip would have both setups in the luggage.
On 2020/03/08 / 95 Day Two this:
http://www.manfrottospares.com/
D1108138 - Scroll Lock Knob
component of my Gitzo Swarovski label "Professional Tripod Head" sheared in half during normal operation. Total crap. Yeah Swarovski, it's a Gitzo product but you put your name on it (while jacking up the price considerably). Good news... I learned a new trick and engineered a rather excellent Plan B solution. Baddish news... The replacement and spare I got in a shade over a week are, of course, identical - save for an irrelevant cosmetic issue. But I've learned how to baby the piece and make things way easier, faster, more efficient for both of us to boot.
2020/03/12 afternoon when it was overcast, cold, dreary I took a short spin back to my first Mercury Transit observation point to do some actual birds in an actual field situation. Was willing to settle for Canada Geese but it looked like the migrants had all migrated and some distant locals parked out of sight on audio were the best I could do on that score. But I had a couple Turkey Vultures parked on the cell tower I pretended were Condors to start me out. Then a smattering of airborne TVs.
Then an adult Eagle approached from the north / primary direction I'd been viewing up no more than two or three hundred feet. Was able to hit and stay on him/her pretty easily, zoom in full to seventy, see clear detail (since there was no turbulence).
Afternoon of 2020/03/24 was able to get back to Chesapeake Bay Foundation and do some serious distance test driving. Wind was light enough, air was stable, lighting was good.
The immediate area was deafening with Ospreys - they have platforms up everywhere you look. My Eagle was gone and had been replaced by an Osprey. And there was a goddam Canada Goose incubating on a platform at the top of a fifteen foot pole. Rather incongruous looking. A couple Fish Crows standing by hoping she'd move.
The Bay was still/again loaded with Surf Scoters - and about the same density of Buffleheads. But also Horned Grebes - shifting into breeding plumage - an a few pockets of Lesser Scaup.
I could watch Turkey Vultures soaring the shore of Kent Island across the Bay - over five and a third miles to the East. Swung NE to the high points of the Bay Bridge spans a bit farther out. Peregrines nest under the road surface and they can be seen parked on the high points on occasion (so I've been told). If there'd been one available I'd have been able to ID it. Shifted South and found a crane whose barge was well below the horizon.
And way the hell out on the surface at the edge of my capabilities I was pretty sure I had a pod of dolphins - which would've been Bottlenose. The motion looked like dolphin but I couldn't quite get a good enough shape to swear that I wasn't seeing something from the Anatid department being bounced in the waves. And when I got back home and checked I found - to little surprise - that Dolphins aren't supposed to show up here until we've gotten into this month.
I'm sure I wouldn't have been much worse off with the 85 but that exercise was a good excuse for all the glass and power one could get.
I've spent about a billion hours on my scope article since returning from Texas two months plus a week ago. Lotsa moments it seems like a sickening waste of time but I'm now confident that it's the best reference on the issues on the planet - the way Kite Strings itself is with respect to our special little aviation disaster area - and I've been surprised to find that it's established a significant web footprint with respect to the industry and culture. Lotsa information and explanations that one will find nowhere else. And this exercise was about the only way I'd have been able to gain the understandings I have.
2020/03/26 21:59:38 UTC I got a notification from Field Guides that our trip list was up:
http://fieldguides.com/bird-tours/texas-rarities/
Texas Birding Tour with FIELD GUIDES: Rio Grande Valley
Photos of the first and last Roadrunner to provide me with a satisfactory viewing experience, the Pauraque I was able to hand to the group, the Great Horned Owl we DIDN'T kill with the tour van, the Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher for which me made the massive detour, the Sprague's Pipit and Morelet's Seedeater on which I'd regrettably opted out.
