Ray Turley was born in 1949 and started birdwatching as a child going to local parks, woods and reservoirs.  Most of his early birding was Essex based at Rainham Marshes, Hanningfield Reservoir or Bradwell Bird Observatory. 

Whilst living in London a relative moved to Folkestone and he found he could get a bus to Dungeness, which became a second home at the weekends, staying at the bird observatory.  During this period he drew many pictures and illustrated various books including The Atlas of Breeding Birds of the London Area, A guide to the Birds of Nepal and The Atlas of the Birds of the Western Palearctic and others. Most of these illustrations were pen and ink drawings done with a fine rotring pen. He developed a style he still uses on his sculptures, replacing the pen with a scalpel to layer, texture and shape the feathers.

At long last, in 1987, his big break came when he was made redundant and moved to Greatstone in Kent only a stone's throw from Dungeness.  Birding was the rule of the day but after a year funds had to be replaced.  A friend and well known Kent birder Peter Grant suggested that he could sell some of the brooches that he had been making. This he did and the brooches grew and became more intricate wall plaques complete with branches, leaves, rocks and impaled insects.  Finally, a back was put onto a wall plaque and a whole bird was made, there was no looking back and now he only makes bird sculptures which he sells at the British Birdwatching Fair or from his home in Greatstone.