Although I believe the specific brand of equipment used has little or no effect on the quality of the photographs taken, the equipment used for nature photograpy should be selected with care as a system. You don't want to select a camera body only to later discover that a specific lens or accessory is not available for that body.

It used to be said that one should select a system based on the lenses, because that is what determined the quality of the photographs taken (get a cheap body and buy top quality lenses). However, when using digital cameras, this is not necessarily true any longer. The sensor and the image processing software built into the camera body has as much influence as the lenses.

I list the equipment I use at right only to give you an idea of what type of equipment is normally required to capture images such as those on this site, and this list is not intended to advocate or support a specific brand.

Airline travel is getting harder: I use Pelican hard cases, one carried on with the most expensive/delicate equipment, and one checked with backup bodies and less expensive equipment.

Camera bodies (all with battery grips and L-brackets):
  Canon 20D - digital SLR
  Canon 40D - digital SLR
  Canon 50D - digital SLR
  Canon 7D - digital SLR
Lenses (all Canon EOS EF or EF-S):
  10-22 mm f3.5-4.5 EF-S
  17-40 mm f4 L
  28-135 mm f3.5-4.5 EF IS
  100 mm macro F2.8 EF
  300 mm f4 L IS
  500 mm f4 L IS
  circular polarizers
  2- and 3-stop hard & soft graduated neutral density filters (HiTech)
  1.4x and 2x teleconverters
Tripods and tripod heads:
  Gitzo 1325 Carbon Fiber
  Manfrotto 1321W Aluminum
  Kirk BH-1 ballhead
  Kirk King Cobra gimbel head
Flash units and accessories:
  Canon 550 EX and 580 EX II
  Kirk Flash extender
  Kirk Telephoto Flash Bracket
  Canon electronic remote releases RC and TC
  Quantum Turbo High voltage battery pack
Lowepro Pro Trekker photo backpack
Pelican hard cases for airline travel