James Hanlon

James Hanlon was born in South London in 1974 and grew up in East Ham, where very early on he developed a keen interest in wildlife, regularly going out bird watching by the age of 10. By his mid-teens, he had established himself as a keen `twitcher’, contributing illustrations and photographs to a number of rare bird publications. After graduating in Zoology at Bangor University, he went backpacking to New Zealand, Australia and Bali. On returning to the UK, Hanlon resumed his birding activities and soon decided to try to record 500 bird species by his 30th birthday at the end of 2004.