Thanks for all the comments and advice, much appreciated. There is more to learn than I realised.
I fully agree! I bought the Sony RX10 Mark IV 3 years ago and have not looked back!
I was sick and tired of carrying around my Canon DSLR and 100-400 5.6 lens. The Sony is just as good and much smaller and lighter.
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That looks impressive on paper. What sutter speeds does it do? I assume you can select shutter and/or appature?
It has all the features of a full DsLr Shutter and Aperture priority etc . But without the bulk or weight of Dslr and big lens.
Fast enough shutter to capture this hummingbird. Hand held with ISO at about a 1000
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There is always… more to learn.
Perhaps another way to look at it. What - do you want your (future) Bird/Wildlife photographs for…? Just for yourself and maybe web use - or for producing professional pictures suitable to (sometimes) be blown up to billboard size…? Or something in between, maybe…?
I have a DSLR - for historic reasons, mainly. I have ‘always’ had one… But I do not ‘need’ one. My iPhone X is perfectly good enough for most of my needs.
Now a smart Phone - on its own - would not be much use for Bird/Wildlife, of course. Thinking in (D)SLR terms - because thats what I know best, you would likely need a lens of at least 300mm maybe 400mm, or more. It might need to be ‘fast’. This mean Expensive. Potentially £1000+.
Avoiding Full Frame and sticking to a Crop Sensor is a good move to reduce costs. Typically, you get a 1.5 times gain in focal length with this. So a 300mm ‘looks’ like a 450mm, and so on. This Is Good - for anything like Bird/Wildlife or Aircraft or similar 'things a long way away.
You probably don’t need an (D)SLR - a Mirrorless would save you some size & weight.
So… I would suggest looking at Mirrorless Crop Sensor cameras. Fuji make some that are said to be good. But you will need to avoid the fixed lens ones - you will (probably) need interchangeable lenses.
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I’m no birder but Ian makes some good points, and I think a mirrorless, crop sensor camera with, say, a 300mm f/4 could be the way to go.
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Impressive, especially when you compare the price to my canon r6 and 100-500 L lense
Looking at what Fuji offer, there is not a prime 300mm, but there are 70-300mm and 100-400mm zooms. They still look to be expensive though… 
(£1700 for the 100-400; £750 for the 70-300 - according to WEX)
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Very difficult to source or was a month or so ago when I eventually got mine. Their stuff goes like hot cakes and there is usually a waiting list.
The 100 - 400 is easier to source.
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Probably because the 70-300 is moderately good value - and the 100-400 is flippin expensive…!!
I though this Mirrorless was supposed to be cheaper… 
Learn Something Everyday.
Swapping tack. The big plus with choosing to go with a DSLR, from say Canon or Nikon, is that there are shedloads of good lenses to be had, pre-loved - of many focal lengths and many different f-stops.
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PS. Checking my records, I see that my Nikon 70-300/f4.5-5.6 cost me about £220 (used) back in 2018.
This is a Full Frame lens. On a crop sensor (like my Nikon D7000), this is effectively a 450mm. On a Full Frame body it would be ‘only’ 300mm.
It is a F2.8-F4 lens. I forget what the fastest shutter speed is, but I have shot sports indoors with it no problem.
You can select shutter, aperture of full manual.
I would look at Wex’s used lenses , they often have near mint examples at silly prices
I look on eBay…
We still need to know the budget. This will absolutely determine any meaningful advice.
Then, are you and your wife able to carry heavy equipment. It’s easy to end up with three or four kilos to lug around, plus bag, a bottle of water etc, and that can be too much after a couple of hours or so.
I’ll hold back on specifics until we know the budget. Even an ish-budget will help.
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Probably all-mentioned before, but I’d be thinking:
A versatile quality lens with at least 300-500mm focal length at the upper end for longer distance shots.
Good high ISO performance to allow faster shutter speeds while minimising noise.
A quality tripod (on my wishlist)
Lens image stabilisation, especially if likely to be shooting handheld often, to give a couple of stops more latitude.
Full frame used to have larger sensor areas ‘per pixel’ so better in terms of noise.
Less than full-frame tended to increase magnification so that 70-200mm would be equivalent to 112-320mm with a 1.6x crop sensor (from my memory of older Canon DSLRs).
Good software for editing/de-noising.
Probably most important - good subject matter!
I once had a lovely Canon 70-200mm F2.8 L IS lens but it was stolen. Got some fairly nice shots of birds in the garden in the winter but the ‘reach’ was not great for things more than 20-30 feet away, and when I added an extender it gave a bit more reach but a similar quality lens with better reach would have been better in terms of image quality as extenders generally introduce compromises. Oh yes, that was stolen too at the same time.
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I personally think a monopod is more sensible. Easier to move around with, easier/faster to set up, easier to manoeuvre in a hide for example.
Of course, you can’t take your hands off it at any time !! 
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I’ve got a couple of monopods and yes far more portable.
My tripod is old, lightweight and would be useless for supporting a camera with a front heavy lens probably even if the lens itself could be tripod attached!
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To be honest, though I generally use my Manfrotto monopod, I’m looking at a new tripod too !!! For the times I don’t need to move much ! Looking at the iFootage range. 
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Hi, we didn’t, probably unwisely, start with a budget, as we originally identified a desire to take some bird and wildlife shots for ourselves and some web posting, but particularly we are always seeing birds we cannot identify in real time so need to capture them for identification when we get home.
Ideally we would rather not pay more than £1K.
My wife and myself were interested in the comments made about the Sony RX10 Bridge camera, due to it’s size etc. Saw a new one online earlier for £1K. I think size and weight is important as I cannot be bothered to go out with the Scope regularly so normally it is just bins.
Forgive my ignorance but is a “Full Frame” vs a “Crop sensor” the same as comparing a 1 inch sensor vs a half inch one?
Plus a crop sensor gives you more magnification for the same lens?
Cheers.
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