A nature expert you can take with you anywhere you go

A few months ago I attended an online presentation from the optic specialists Swarovski. I don’t need to tell you that the company is a leader in the field of scopes for rifles and glassware. Normally when we talk about a Swarovski product it is clearly aimed at the stalking market, but this time is different. However, the other group that needs great optics is birdwatchers, and we’re confident that there’s a few amongst our members and readers, which is why we wanted to share our thoughts on a truly innovative piece of Swarovski kit.

The Swarovski Optik DG (or digital guide) is a revolutionary 8x25 monocular that’s aimed at those who love birds, but like me, aren’t necessarily all that hot on identifying the species. If I had one of those little notebooks beloved of twitchers, it would feature lots of LBJs (Little Brown Jobs). The DG connects via wifi to a dedicated app on your phone, which displays whatever you’re looking at through the viewfinder on your phone’s screen. It can connect to several devices at once, so if you’re with a group of friends they too can see what you’re training the device on. Pressing the button on the top of the DG then captures a photo, which is saved to your device. You can then upload that image to a companion app called Merlin, developed by Cornell University, which then uses AI to offer suggestions as to the identity of the species. Pretty nifty, right?

 

Now, this may seem like sacrilege to hardened birders, who might view this in the same way a dry-fly fisher might think of catching trout on a worm or lumps of bread, but this is not really a product aimed at that group. It is designed for enthusiastic amateurs who are looking to learn.

 

We recently had the chance to give the DG a try, so Director of Sales Frank Stephenson and I took it in turns to experiment. The first thing to say we both really enjoyed using the DG. It is pretty straightforward to set up, and intuitive to use, although Frank had a bit of a false start when he failed to enter his location into Merlin and consequently . As an object it sits really nicely in the hand.

 

It does, however take some getting used to. There is a tiny delay between pressing the button to take a picture and the picture actually being taken. We both felt that our background in shooting meant that we were at an advantage, having an understanding of the need to keep the device moving to keep the subject in shot. Once we had mastered this delay, we both had more success, even managing to capture shots of swallows mid flight (just!) - quite the feat, we felt.

 

 

I took the DG down to Hampshire while visiting my parents and spent an enjoyable afternoon sitting in the garden with a cup of tea watching the swallows and swifts buzzing over the barns. Things got really exciting when three different birds of prey turned up one after the other. First, the swallows and swifts went mad when what I initially identified as a Peregrine (there’s been a pair nesting on Winchester Cathedral for years and we occasionally see them on the farm) - terribly exciting. I snapped a few shots, but when I popped the image into the Merlin app the result that came back that it was a Hobby. Shows what I know.

 

 

Next up was a Red Kite and I was able to get a cracking shot. A red kite is one of the few birds that I can identify on sight - that forked tail is a dead giveaway - but it was fabulous to see so close over the house.

 

 

Later a pair of buzzards showed up, initially quite high on the thermals, but one gradually descended to sit in a tree and look hungrily at my mother’s chickens and guinea fowl. Good luck to him, frankly - the guineas are fierce.

 

 

I was a bit less successful with the smaller birds, finding that they were too fast on the wing to catch a good photo of, and that their movements when on the ground or perching were too unpredictable. I did get these handsome goldfinches on the barn roof, though, and this (rather flukey) shot of a swallow.

 

 

I also tried the DG here in London, where, as I live right by the Thames, there’s a fair bit of birdlife. Or at least, there usually is. When I took the DG out for a walk to the pub (honest, its work, boss!), I managed to spot my nemesis (nemeses? Sounds more Egyptian) the Egyptian Geese that kept waking me at ungodly hours earlier in the summer, as well as lots of gulls. I watch them bobbing about on the river from my balcony as I enjoy my morning cuppa, but they’ve always been too far away for me to properly identify them. Thanks to the DG I now know that they are largely blackheaded gulls, with the odd Herring gull mixed in. I’d never really looked closely at the blackheaded gulls before, and tend to think of them as ‘vicious little beggars’ but they are really quite attractive birds when they’re not dive-bombing you for chips.

 

 

Overall, the Swarovski DG is a really fun thing to play about with. The species ID element is really useful, especially if you’re a birder looking to expand your knowledge. Because the Merlin app is location based, if you were somewhere where you had no idea what you were looking at, say in South America, it would be a great piece of kit to have with you, and if you’re in a group even better - it saves on the “can you see it”, it’s just to the left of that leaf on that tree over there” conversations, thanks to the sharing function. IAt close to £2K it is not a cheap piece of kit, but then, you’re paying not only for top quality optics (the DG is a pretty impressive device without all the tech wizardry, far better than my 20 year-old binos), but also all the tech stuff too.