{"id":2145,"date":"2021-08-24T18:07:23","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T18:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.zeiss.com\/sports-optics\/birding\/en\/?p=2145"},"modified":"2021-12-14T09:53:25","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T09:53:25","slug":"part-1-how-it-all-began-the-roots-of-bird-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.zeiss.com\/sports-optics\/birding\/en\/part-1-how-it-all-began-the-roots-of-bird-watching\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 1: How it all began: The roots of bird watching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the 13th<\/sup> century the interest in birds was still strongly connected to hunting, when the emperor Friedrich the Second wrote a book with the name \u201cAbout the art to hunt with birds\u201d. This focus already changed during the 16th<\/sup> century. At that time Conrad Gessner tried to describe and categorize all birds. This tradition was intensified by some zoologists in Germany during the 19th<\/sup> century: Johann Friedrich Naumann is regarded to be one of the founders of Europe\u2019s ornithologists. In twelve volumes he dealt with the nature history of birds in all details. Christian Ludwig Brehm continued with it and contributed with important descriptions regarding the taxonomy. His well-known son Alfred Brehm inherited his records and added behavioral studies as a further perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In England, George Edwards founded the ornithological history with exact descriptions of the different bird species during the 18th<\/sup> century and delivered with this a decisive basis for Carl von Linn\u00e9\u2019s scientific descriptions. Latest at the end of the 19th<\/sup> century, the scientific ornithology and the protection of birds found its recognition thanks to Hans Freiherr von Berlepsch. He committed himself to protect their habitats. The time when birds were haunted and examined in a stuff form became slowly history. It was now about watching birds and leave them undisturbed to watch their behavior. Anyhow, this was not so easy without the right optics. The German zoologist Oskar Heinroth and his wife Magdalena started a rather unorthodox project, which is very well described in the bird \u201cThe bird collective\u201d. They brought up 250 bird species of Europe in their apartment in Berlin to describe their behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\u00a9 zneb076 – stock.adobe.com<\/div>\n \n\n \"\u00a9zneb076\n <\/div>\n
\u00a9zneb076 \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/figcaption>\n\n\n\n\n \n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A Lesser Spotted Woodpecker built its hole into their cupboard, a Eurasian Nightjar bred on their carpet and the Brown Owl tried to catch the cuckoo of the Black Forest clock every hour. It is unbelievable regarding animal and species conservation from a today\u2019s perspective, but it was not alone a challenge for the birds. The dust of the birds forced Oskar Heinroth to sleep with an oxygen mask every night as he got allergic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As most of the comprehensive ornithological works were written of European feathers, there developed an own literature about North America\u2019s bird life in the beginning of the 19th<\/sup> century thanks to Alexander Wilson. He wrote the \u201cAmerican Ornithology\u201d with intensive studies of the North American birds, which was completed by George Ord later on. For behavioral studies not only of birds but also other species the development of binoculars by the end of the 19th<\/sup> century was pioneering. Carl Zeiss, who was written Carl Zei\u00df at that time, actually developed microscopes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n\n\n\n
\n
\n \n\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n \n\n\n\n\n \n <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
beenhere<\/i><\/div><\/div>

The ZEISS Babuchin microscope<\/h3>


The ZEISS Babuchin microscope was developed in 1889 and is made of zaponized and blackened or black-painted brass and blued steel. The instrument has a telescopic graduated tube, coarse adjustment mechanism, and a prism fine drive. A five-position plane and concave mirror is used for illumination. The entire system carrier can be raised and lowered by a side screw. In the lowest position, this carrier folds out to the left to allow convenient changing of the condenser system.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

He also gave them to the young zoologist, Ernst J\u00e4ckel, at very reduced prices as J\u00e4ckel was still very young and not as famous as he got later on. Carl Zeiss supported him in his research. Together with the young physicist Ernst Abbe Zeiss not only developed the microscope further. They also checked how to align two telescopes for the zoology in parallel \u2013 one telescope for each eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n