30/07/2026
Today I want to share with you how I got into birding
It was 2016, I was on holiday in the Kruger National Park with with my folks and my father had taken his camera with. Nothing fancy but you could zoom, aim and click away.
While we were out driving around, I picked up the camera and decided to start capturing everything we saw.
I soon became bored of snapping away at impala and zebra so I started to notice the smaller, less obvious creatures when we stopped.
I started snapping away at all the birds I saw, especially those that were closer because let's be fair, even a zoomed in fancy camera can give you horribly blurry photos.
When we got home, I downloaded all the pictures and started to scroll through them. I realised I had no idea what I had captured, so I lent a bird book and started to try ID the birds and make a list of the birds I had capture.
Well that was me, hooked. That year when Black Friday hit I bought my camera with a 200mm lense.
The following year on holiday with a friend I told her we stop for birds too and she was all in. We had a great time.
I did realise my lens was not going to cut it so again waited for Black Friday and then got my 600mm lens.
Since then photography and birding go hand in hand. And here I am 10 years later still snapping away, but now at least I can ID most of the birds without too much effort.
What's your story? Why did you start birding?
