Exercise 3 solution (sample answer)

Scenario: ducks on a lake about 300 m from the car park.
1. Binoculars: scan the water, find the birds, follow any that fly. Wide field of view, hand-held.
2. Spotting scope on a tripod: bring up the distant ducks for detail. Scopes usually run about 20x to 60x, and the image is sensitive to vibration, so the tripod is needed.
3. Field guide: use a picture guide organised by family or shape to narrow down look-alike species, then compare the marks the arrows point to.
4. Notepad: record date, place and counts.