When Eagle Eyes Aren’t Enough

ZEISS Binoculars for the NABU Federsee Nature Conservation Center

Binoculars and spotting scopes from ZEISS allow nature lovers to experience nature in a very personal way and can therefore play a key and active role in protecting plants and animal species. In collaboration with professional associations, ZEISS supports numerous nature conservation activities, educational programs for children and adults, and research programs to protect endangered animal species.

For example, ZEISS has been supporting the NABU Nature Conservation Center on Lake Federsee in Germany for around 20 years, including through its permanent loan of binoculars from the company’s Victory, Conquest, and Terra lines. The binoculars are not only used by volunteers involved in nature and wildlife conservation on site, but are also made available to visitors, for example during guided tours.

“Guided tours and ornithological inventories are important jobs performed by the NABU Center on Lake Federsee within the scope of its contract with the state of Baden-Württemberg to care for the Federsee marshland. High-performance optics are essential for these tasks,” emphasizes Dr. Katrin Fritzsch, director of the conservation center. The binoculars are used, for example, during patrols for beaver management and landscape conservation, but above all for ornithological research, such as monitoring breeding birds or mapping the hen harrier roosts in the Federsee fen.

According to the center’s director, appropriate optics are simply indispensable – especially in the field of environmental education, with the center holding around 400 such events a year. “The black patch of feathers on the head of a great crested grebe in breeding plumage, cormorants drying their feathers on the breeding rafts in Tiefenbach Bay, or distinguishing roosting duck species on Lake Federsee – binoculars allow our guests to experience all of this up close and personal.” Of course, says the biologist with a smile, even the best optics are no guarantee that you’ll actually catch sight of the Eurasian bittern with your binoculars at Lake Federsee, as the observers manage to do in the ZEISS promotional video for the Victory SF 32 that was filmed there – although she can nearly guarantee observations of the bearded reedling and hen harrier at the right time of year.

Currently, the conservation center‘s permanent exhibition is closed. For the coming season, the center has prepared an exciting program of guided tours. Further information is available at www.NABU-Federsee.de/termine-aktuelles/aktuelles.

For those who would like to visit Lake Federsee on their own, observation tips are available on the following pages (in German): https://www.nabu-federsee.de/termine-aktuelles/beobachtungstipps/