My name is Graham Clarke and I am an Irish birder living in Cork City, Ireland. I first became interested in birds at the tender age of 8 when I found a bird book in my national school library and became hooked from that point onward. At the same time my Dad had just bought a pair of Ajax 10 x 50 bins which I quickly 'borrowed' and set about watching all the birds in our Dublin back garden with great interest. As is the way growing, up other distractions took over and the birding was forgotten about as leaving certs, college and working took precedence. However the spark was still there and a couple of years ago my interest was rekindled (once more by garden birds). A career move took me to Cork and from a birding perspective it's a hard county to beat. A wide variety of habitats, a lively birding scene, great rare birds in the Autumn (and Spring) and places like Cape Clear Island, Ballycotton and Galley Head to name but a few.

Photography has always been a bit of an unknown for me (it looks like it still is I hear you say!) but the desire to capture images of the birds I saw lead me initially down the digiscoping route and more recently to digital SLR (for those interested I presently use a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a 500mm f/4 lens on a Gitzo tripod with Wimberley Sidekick). The images aren't always technically brilliant, but if I like them I'll put it up on the website. I try not to restrict it just to images of rare or scarce birds because what's common in Ireland may be rare and of interest somewhere else.

Thanks for checking out my website and please feel free to leave a comment or suggestion in the guestbook.