I've been birding since spring 2007 with my principle birding location now being Sandwich and the cliff top between Dover and Kingsdown.

I started photographing birds in summer 2007 with a Panasonic Lumix but soon wanted more and purchased a Sony alpha 200 plus a Sigma 170-500mm lens in March 2008. Whilst a step up from a compact it clearly had significant shortcomings so in April 2009 I purchased a Sony 70-400mm SSM G lens and soon after upgraded to the Sony alpha 700. The moral here is to talk to those in the know (as many as possible) before parting with your cash.

By January 2012 the Sony was beginning to show signs of aging with various faults developing so I went looking for alternatives.

Eventually I went with the crowd and got a Canon 7D and opted for the 400 f5.6 lens. This Canon combo was noticeably sharper than the Sony and being a prime lens locked on really quickly (the Sony 70-400 was very slow in comparison) but the lack of IS does meant I had to use a tripod a lot of the time.

About 6 months after that the 7D mk 2 came out and I upgraded to that. This was a serious step in the right direction with higher pixel count, 10 frames per second and most importantly a lot less noise that the original 7D.

I don't twitch much and my pictures are pretty much a record of what I've found/seen on my local patches.

The mk 2 started developing faults so I upgraded to the R5. I still have the 400mm f5.6 but would like something with more reach.