Haha, same thing, girlfriend installed Merlin on her phone, our walks turned into birdwatching hunts and now I’m eyeing the nice and affordable RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM to make things more interesting. I’m hoping it stops at that, birding lenses are expensive.
Still seems like a good place to start because it’ll make you extremely aware of everything you want the next bigger lens to do ;)
And, yes, Merlin has been transformative for me, too.
I don’t think I would have invested in a birding lens if I wasn’t already deep into photography, but it’s possible to get a reasonable starter kit for $2K or less if the goal isn’t to make 30” prints.
It’s still nothing to sneeze at, but those $10K lenses aren’t necessary to get some really great results for hobby purposes.
The challenge of getting the shots is part of what makes the process enjoyable and the resulting photos extremely rewarding. It also lets me explore in far more detail once I get home. I brought home a 40MP photo of a cardinal fully filling the frame today, and it’s pretty incredible zooming up on the plumage, seeing the intricacies of their talons, etc.
With that said, I completely respect the non-photography approach and do think that the gear gets distracting at times.