A late starter to birdwatching by comparison to most of my In Focus colleagues; an enthusiastic amateur rather than a very experienced professional. Things really started when I took an overseas assignment with my employer and spent 6 years living and working in Mombasa, Kenya during the 1980's. I just had to know more about the incredible birds that were around me and in my garden! I became very active and, with others, started a small birdwatching group within the "Friends of Fort Jesus" Museum Society, an interest group based in Mombasa. Early memories which led to my continuing interest were: a Southern Banded Snake Eagle in my garden, a flock of Carmine Bee-eaters during one of our regular "around Mombasa" walks, a Narina's Trogon from my office window and of course the bird that started it all, the Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu in my garden.
After early retirement in 2000, I started working with WWT at the London Wetland Centre as a volunteer doing tour guiding and aviculture work with the captive collection of threatened species and often handled captive wildfowl species well before ever seeing them in the wild. I joined In Focus in June 2001. Most of my birding has been done in the UK, USA, Australasia, Caribbean and Africa. Top bird ever seen was a Black Stilt in the wild near Twizel in New Zealand.

Vernon was born in Surrey and moved to Norfolk in 1975, having been keen on birdwatching and following family holidays birding, the decision was made to move to the country, the birding hotspot of Norfolk was the obvious place.
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From this time onwards birdwatching took priority at home and abroad. When not at school the weekends were spent at Holme bird observatory studying identification, migration and ringing. Having left school he then took up full time employment there studying birds, performing reserve work and dealing with the general public, informing them of all things birds.
After leaving Holme he then took up a job for English Nature at Holkham NNR and remained here for nine years, this job mainly involved species protection and an extensive wetland bird survey over the 10.000 acres of wet grass meadow and reedbeds. This work was covered annually and became the largest wetland bird survey of its type undertaken in the UK, and still remains the bench mark work for studies on such habitats.
Having done some work with In Focus over many years on an informal basis, he was offered a job at the Titchwell shop in 1997 and accepted, he remains shop manger there to this day.

During this whole period Vernon has travelled extensively to many countries around the world. Visiting the Indian sub-continent 5 times, south east Asia and Indonesia 3 times, Africa on six occasions, South America including the Galapagos Islands twice and Central America and the Caribbean 4 times. Also many visits throughout Europe, many of these trips where in the company of his partner Samantha and their 16 year old son Jack. Amongst the numerous highlights are birds such as Sunbittern, Great Indian Bustard, Inca Tern and Pied Harrier just to mention a few. Vernon is also joint founder of the Norfolk bird club so can usually pass information concerning the local bird situation in North Norfolk.

John McLoughlin, aka Johnny Mac, has been birdwatching since early childhood. He is now an established figure on the British Birdwatching scene. The voice of Birdline North East, he has been a member of the British Birds rarities committee for ten years. John is a regular contributor to Birdwatch and Birdwatching magazines.
John has worked at the Denby Dale branch since it opened in 1993, has been manager there since 1997 and has pioneered a programme of highly successful field events across the north of England. He also played a major role in the establishment of the In Focus shop at Martin Mere.
Prior to his work at In Focus, John was involved in conservation research. He has studied Dippers in mid Wales, Merlins and Black Grouse in the North Pennines and Gurneys Pitta in Thailand. John has also led tours across Europe, North and Central America.
John is married with three young children and has his family home in Denby Dale. His choice of optics are the new Zeiss FL 8x32 binoculars and his trusty Kowa TS 613 telescope.

Keith Mortimer describes himself as a failed fisherman at the age of eight and so his rod, reel and hooks were traded in for a Russian pair of binoculars and a copy of the eye spy book of British Birds. He used this as his launch pad for a life long interest in birds and once the turquoise flash along the river bank was firmly identified he was ready to broaden his horizons.
One of the major influences was a move to Lundy Island where he took over from Richard Campey running the island Tavern and acting as voluntary bird warden. During his four years on the island most of his spare time was spent bird watching, and, with migrant highlights such as Black eared Wheatear and American Robin it was anything but routine. His move there was both pivotal in his understanding of birds and at the same time provided him with a taste for travel and more adventures. On leaving Lundy he visited Europe and the near East. Keith then worked for In Focus as manager of the Slimbridge shop for some ten years,in addition to visiting the USA, Vietnam, the Himalaya and the Sahara. However the pull of his favourite destination, India, was too much and he left In Focus for a prolonged trip round that enchanting continent.
Keith has recently returned to In Focus and runs the outside events programme as well as a few days back at the Slimbridge shop.

Bernie has been a birder for longer than he can remember, though he does recall at the age of eleven making thirty five-mile cycle trips to Martin Mere. By the age of fifteen he was spending his school holidays on birding trips throughout the UK.
An eight-year spell living (and birding) followed this in North Norfolk. He then, starting working for In Focus which coincidentally returned him to Martin Mere!
More recently Bernie has developed a passion for birding abroad and he is now a tour leader to several European destinations in addition to solo trips to destinations as far apart as America and South East Asia.
Over the past couple of years Bernie has spent an increasing amount of his time recording and photographing moths, as he says “at last something to fill in the hours of darkness”. Of late he can often be seen lugging a Nikon telephoto lens around the reserve as his budding interest in bird photography develops.

As a youngster Nigel always had a keen interest in birds but it wasn’t until he moved to Edinburgh in the early seventies that he could persuade his parents to sit for hours in the car to allow him to go birdwatching at Aberlady Bay and Musselburgh lagoons on the Firth of Forth. He also spent many happy hours sitting in the “forward hide” as a volunteer on the RSPM Operation Osprey project.
After moving back to Bristol he found his circle of birding friends increased and this progressed from the South West to many trips abroad. He started mainly in Europe and then Gambia, North Africa and the Middle East. America and South East Asia were soon to follow.
In the mid 90’s Nigel was taken on as a tour guide by Birdfinders. Time constraints now restrict Nigel to just one tour leading trip a year and his traditional week in the autumn to where he describes “my favourite plot of land anywhere in the world “ St Agnes, Isles of Scilly.
His local patch is now Slimbridge WWT and more particularly that patch of wetland in front of the In Focus shop window where he tries to pip the wardens to the post by finding “something good” before they do. He’s still looking.

Mike was born in Hertfordshire where from an early age he showed great interest in pastoral matters. Art college led to an apprenticeship in a leading commercial photographic business and via photographic retailing to a career in the optical trade culminating in 10 years with Carl Zeiss.
Mike joined In Focus over 20 ears ago and helped establish several of their shops. Now at Rutland he has become involved with the Rutland Osprey Project and is a volunteer crew member on the very successful evening cruises. He has accumulated an extensive knowledge of binocular and telescope design and development; ideally placed therefore to advise on their selection and usage.