Emergency Scope Repair

My poor, poor scope

This story begins in a parking lot at Presquile provincial Park; a beautiful location famous for birding opportunities. It was January and I returned to my car after a gruelling hike in knee deep snow out to Owen point and around Gull Island. Everything was going according to plan, with my first-ever Snow Buntings seen on this hike. My next destination was the lighthouse and a possible Barrow's Goldeneye. Fate intervened, however...

As I approached my car, I slipped on a patch of ice. I hit the ice, and along with me went my Nikon scope, which promptly broke into two pieces. It signalled the end of my birding trip and, far worse, uncertainty about the condition of my scope. Thankfully, the actual optical parts of my scope were undamaged. The only problem was that it was...well...in two pieces. The entire nightmare has been re-created by THE DAUGHTER below...

Now most would assume that I would simply give up on my scope but I could not. Reason A: My scope has helped me with a bunch of sightings and lifers and it is not in my nature to simply let go of something that has proven itself useful. Reason B: My wife was expecting our second child and, oddly enough, did not see the value of purchasing a brand new scope for "several hundred dollars". One of the drawbacks of being a birding parent. And thus I began my internship in Emergency Scope Repair.

Broken...

At least it gives you a chance to see what the inside of a scope looks like...

A view that few people actually see...

My first effort a repairing my poor scope consisted of something I had seen battle-tested on commercials throughout my youth.

Surely if it could hold a man's weight,  it could hold my scope together. Uh, not so much. Let me just say I'm a lot more skeptical about this claim now...

Instead, I turned to option b)

Yay Duck ( or Duct ) Tape !!!

After careful wrapping straight out of an episode of "Tales in the ER", my scope was fixed, kind of...

And fixed...

Ability of duct tape to hold scope together: 4 / 5

Aesthetics of duct tape on my scope: 1 / 5

And so it has gone on for two + years now. Periodic unwrapping and wrapping my scope ( Duck tape stretches over time, ). Every so often trying a new product ( Gorilla Glue ! ). Watching the new product fail  (Thanks but no thanks, Gorilla Glue ). Back to wrapping...

The ritual continues...

Amazingly the scope still works, even with its somewhat unloved appearance. It keeps rewarding me too. It helped me to come home from a road trip to Cape May with 14 life birds. It was there when I spotted my life American White Pelican, a vagrant that showed up in Oshawa. This winter it was my life Harlequin Duck. So my battered scope and I soldier on, waiting for the next lifer to come along.