Co-published with GoBirding You have taken the figurative plunge, accepted the facts, and noticed the signs. Murmurs among friends, family, and colleagues all point toward the same prognosis: you have become a birder. What began as innocent curiosity, a quick glance out the kitchen window, and the casual “what bird is that?” remark whispered on...

Binoculars are indispensable to birdwatching and a good pair even more so in revealing fine detail. Typically these come with a high price tag but luckily there are some great choices that are easier on the wallet. One such brand is Vortex, and I was able to extensively field test their mid-range Viper 8X42 Viper...

Swarovski’s AX Visio has certainly been a hot topic amongst birders since their recent (Feb 2024) release.  So what is all the hype? It incorporates a 10X32 binocular, a camera and bird identification (AI recognition) software – the world’s first ‘smart’ binocular. 20 programming languages were used and 475,000 lines of code were written for...

African Birdlife last conducted a comparative binocular review in the March/April 2013 issue. One of the best models was the Zeiss Conquest, which sits between Zeiss’s top-end Victory and entry-level Terra series. Costing only half the price of the premium Swarovski, Leica and Zeiss Victory models, the Conquest combined excellent optics with a robust, no-nonsense...