Welcome to the World of Birds web-site

This web-site has been built so that I can indulge my passion for bird photography. I've always been keenly interested in natural history and I have always tried to photograph birds when I've been on holiday, using very inadequate photographic equipment. I've still not got the photographic gear that I'd really like to have and the photographs on this site are not necessarily the best that you'll find on the internet. Those of you who have visited Steve Round's or Sue Tranter's web-sites will spot that immediately. However, I have enjoyed watching and photographing the birds you'll find on this site and I hope to add better pictures as I develop my own photography skills.

I started off a few years ago trying to take simple pictures with a bottom of the range Canon EOS 5000N SLR camera with an EF80-200 F4.5-F5.6 zoom lens. I didn't really understand photography (and still have much to learn) and the pictures I obtained were almost always disappointing. I took up bird photography with more passion when I acquired a digital SLR camera in January 2005.

These days I have some reasonably nice kit. I describe it on the 'Cameras' pages for those who are interested. Of course, I'm totally digital these days as with a little help from some clever software, even a poor picture can be made to look not too bad.

So where do I take my photographs? Well I live in the North West of England (West Manchester to be precise) and I consider anywhere within a couple of hours drive, or so, to be 'my local patch'. So Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside, most of Yorkshire, Cumbria, North Wales, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, as well as Greater Manchester. Occasionally I'll go a bit further a field (e.g. Powys, Shropshire, North Yorkshire and places of a similar distance) and when I go away on holiday I always try to do a little bird watching and photography (although don't get to do too much as my wife and kids don't share this passion).

Anyhow, I hope that you enjoy the web-site. If you have any comments, especially tips for improving my pictures or good locations for bird photography, then please use the 'Contact me' tab to let me know or you can add an entry to the web-site guest book.