I have been interested in natural history and wildlife since I was at infants school, and was very fortunate to have spent most of my working life in the fisheries sector which afforded me an almost unique opportunity to study my world at close quarters. There I developed my photographic and Journalist skills and have had numerous articles and pictures published. As well as fish, birds have always fascinated me but I didn't become a serious birder until 2001 when I started to keep records. My ambition then was to achieve 300 "self found" species in the Western Palearctic and 500 worldwide......two ambitions which have almost been fulfilled. Most of my birding nowadays is confined to my home patch around Dublin, but I try and get away overseas as often as possible to keep the numbers increasing!