One for The Repair Shop?

As regular readers will know, we've been celebrating 75 years of Minsmere as an RSPB nature reserve this year. It's also 60 years since the Scrape was first created by Bert Axell. With these two milestones in mind, two recent discoveries take on even more significance.

During the construction of the long-awaited new accessible boardwalk to East Hide, our contractors Gilleards have unearthed not one, but two pairs of old binoculars buried in the edge of the reedbed. 

One of these was found close to the old access path to East Hide, so may have been dropped by an unfortunate birdwatcher, but where the second pair was found there is no public access, so it may have be lost by a previous warden or volunteer.

One set is still in remarkably good condition, though I think they would need a lot of work to make them usable. I was quite excited to see these as I was given an identical pair for my 18th birthday! They are Carl Zeiss Jenoptem 10x50s, built in the then East Germany between 1971and 1990. 

Zeiss had been split into two different companies when Germany was divided after the Second World War. Following the reunification of Germany, the East and West German companies were merged again, with Zeiss continuing to make very high quality binoculars and telescopes. 

All Zeiss binoculars have a unique serial number, and remarkably we can still read the number on this model - 6690576. It will be interesting to know whether Zeiss can track down details of where and when these binoculars were sold!

The second model, which looks a bit worse for wear,  are Tasco 7x50s, but that's about all we can say. They must have been buried for some time, though, as there's even the root of a reed growing through the casing.

We're now trying to decide whether there is anywhere that we can display these interesting finds. It also raises another question. Exactly what else is buried beneath Minsmere's varied habitats.