right as rain

For a few months it felt like Nikon was gaslighting us. “Your camera has been refurbished, cleaned, tested, and confirmed to perform to spec,” read more than one notice included with our repaired camera, which most assuredly did not perform to spec after multiple repairs. 

What started as a simple screen replacement turned into a months-long saga as D’s birding camera recrossed the globe multiple times. A colleague took it back to the States to mail it to Nikon after the initial accident; a month later — when we received the camera back and confirmed that not only was the new screen configured improperly but also that Nikon had introduced an unrelated problem during the repair — a local friend did us the same favor. The second time, Nikon decided to mail the camera to S’s parents in Maine rather than returning it to us in Costa Rica, setting off an international game of hot potato.

S’s parents sent the apparatus to D’s parents, who brought it to Costa Rica when they came to visit us in April, and then promptly took the camera back with them for a third set of repairs because the problem Nikon had introduced persisted. The issue pertained to the diopter — the little +/- dial on SLR cameras that allows people who do not have 20/20 vision to adjust the viewfinder to match their vision and thus take photographs without using glasses or corrective lenses. Nikon had knocked this mechanism out of whack, so that everything looked completely blurry whenever D attempted to take photographs.

“Good news, we’ve managed to duplicate the issue with your diopter,” Nikon emailed D after ignoring his explicit instructions and mailing the camera to Maine yet again. This time, however, D responded quickly enough that Nikon was able to pull the package back from UPS and redirect it to our diplomatic postal address for delivery to Costa Rica. We received it at the end of May, just before we were scheduled to travel to Arenal for this year’s Ultimate frisbee Volcanic Tournament.

D’s primary focus that weekend was on Ultimate frisbee, of course, but he still found a couple of opportunities to put the recently repaired camera to good use. Arenal is in one of the country’s birdiest areas — not an opportunity D was going to pass up. On Saturday, before playing four Ultimate games, D got up with the sun and birded for an hour on the grounds of our hotel in La Fortuna. After the tournament, he also got some birding in at the Arenal Mistico Hanging Bridges and while the kids went on their nth chocolate tour at Two Little Monkeys.

You can see some of the results for yourself. Though it rained a bit while we were at Two Little Monkeys, the camera performed admirably. And these handful of excursions on the margins of the frisbee tournament netted D four new lifers. Most importantly, D feels whole again — for months after the initial accident he had felt the absence of his damaged camera like an amputee feels a ghost limb. Now that the camera has been repaired, we’re back to planning out our summer travel with birding in mind.

Pictured top to bottom: cinnamon hummingbird; rufous-tailed hummingbird; bare-throated tiger-heron; stripe-breasted wren; bananaquit; cinnamon-bellied saltator. Featured image: Lesson’s motmot.