These birding pages are a portal into my longest standing passion. I started birding at the age of 6 over 30 years ago and I am as passionate about my endeavours now as I was as a fresh-faced child. I am by no means an expert and I certainly do not consider my photographs to be of a particularly high level but I often like to share my experiences with others with a few photos tacked on at the end and this is the medium through which I have chosen to do so.
As a young father my birding habits were potentially quite selfish with early departures waking up the kids and ruining my wife’s peaceful awakenings but now as my kids are growing a little older it is something which I hope to share with them in the future. My oldest son (Tommy) has jumped in, feet first, and has started to grow his own list and so he has become a solid birding companion. Adam is also becoming a bit of a fanatic and his list has commenced but needs a few more to catch up with his brother. Jack, my youngest boy, is still a little young to be out there birding but I am sure he will join us when the time is right for him. Emma, my one and only daughter, is still a tiny tot and even if she does not become a superkeen birder at least there will be someone to go shopping with Jeanie.
I suppose my biggest existing challenge is my wife (Jeanie) who is still showing very little patience for my avian pursuits. I have plenty of time on my side, though, and when the kids ultimately leave the house and head off to varsity I am sure I will have some company.
This birding site has taken a while to put together and it will suffer continuous improvements and changes but it is by no means an expert endeavour so please forgive me for that. It is split into a few sections which hopefully make some sense.
The Blogs page is dedicated to brief birding notes from short trips that I may take with mates of mine or with my increasingly enthusiastic kids. These are not meant to be particularly scientific or technical pages but merely a short (or sometimes quite verbose) rendition of my journeys.
The Trips page is dedicated to longer trips that I take with specific intentions of growing my life list and my photographic list. These pages will usually be journals of some of the more interesting places that I visit on these exploits. The “trips” page will most likely be relatively static as work pressures and family demands mean that there are relatively few opportunities to visit far flung places.
The Birds page took me absolute ages to put together and represents a collection of all the bird species that I have photographed. At the moment the species are restricted to birds that I have photographed in Southern Africa but in time this may become a little more global. Don’t expect anything on that front until my kids are all paying for themselves. If you spend any time looking at these pages you will see how many species need dramatic improvement. This, I hope to do over many years and I can say with absolute certainty that these pages will never be complete.
The Favourites page is dedicated to some of my favourite photos. It will be a dynamic page and I will most likely grow tired of some photos and replace them with others but I know that some of them will be there for a while. Have a look at these pics and feel free to share your thoughts with me on how good or bad they are. As I may have mentioned before I am not a particularly technical photographer so they purely represent photos that are pleasing to my eye.
One comment on “About”
Congrats on your really thorough, professional & regularly up-dated site, Mike. It looks great!