100 Birds of Ireland

Birds.ie was created by David Behan - Hi, that's me! Thanks for visiting. I really appreciate it and I hope you like it so far. Three things have come together to make this site possible... my love for nature, photography and building websites.

Background

My love for nature and birds started back when I was a kid, always fascinated by animals out at night, or kestrels hunting on Bull Island, or seeing a new species for the first time. I loved it and still do!

Photography has always been my thing... an escape away from the computer and out to find a subject to focus on and photograph. I've tried many subjects and photography styles but my favourite over the past few years has been nature and bird photography. I love getting lost in nature, and being suprised by whatever might come across your path on any given day.

Some days it will just be the usual subjects, but there's a magical feeling when you discover somewhere or something new that nature serves up for you to watch, listen and if you get a chance, to photograph. If you've tried nature/bird photography, I think you know what I'm talking about.

Over the past 20+ years, I've built 100s of websites for clients from small business websites to large household names. I love creating sites but I haven't created a website project for myself in recents years. I've had a creative itch that needed to be scratched. I just needed the right subject.

The Project

This project started back in 2020 when I finally found the time to get back into photography after a few years away from the camera. I started to create a large collection of images of birds and nature. 1000s of images filling up on hard drives. Some good, a lot bad. I kept improving, looking for new techniques, ways to capture, places to go, learning from others, meeting people out and about. It's been a brilliant journey so far.

When I started to collate the images into collections, I realised that I didn't want it all to just sit on my computer and I didn't want to just share some on social media (with reduced quality). I wanted to challenge myself and create a site that had more than just small images on it. I wanted it to have my best work, information about the bird, maybe some audio, information on great locations, maybe photography tips for others, start a forum, connect with others, who knows.

It has to start somewhere and one step at a time, so the first target is to get to 100 Birds of Ireland - well photographed and documented. And we'll go from there.

Let's Connect

So, please join me on this journey, connect with me on social media, sign up for my newsletter. I'll let you know of updates as I go. Please reach out and say hi and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you.

Yours Sincerely,

David Behan

Latest Site Updates

→ September 2023: Currently working on next set of bird pages
→ July 2023: Layout improvements and changes
→ June 2023: Site launched with 20 birds
→ May 2022 to May 2023: Site Coding and Content Creation
→ April 2020 to March 2022: Lots of Photographs!