I too am in the market for an A77, and am waiting for availability to improve so that prices come down a bit before buying one. I am, however, a long-term Minolta/Sony person, and all my lenses are A-mount, so I have reason to stay with the system.
On the Sony board of dpreview
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1037&/sony-slr-talk-forum/ there have been a lot of discussions on some of the major controversial issues, such as the following.
- Is the EVF up to following fast moving objects and how does it perform under various light conditions?
- Is there a problem with the sensor as far as noise goes (certainly there seems to be general agreement that the jpgs have very heavy-handed noise reduction).
- What is the autofocus like (though this is mostly in comparison with other Sony slrs/slts)?
There are a lot of people on that forum who have personal experience with the Sony A77 (and fewer with the A65) who have written quite extensively about it. Also, there have been a number of bird photos posted variously taken with these two cameras.
I would very strongly recommend sitting down with a hot drink and a couple of hours to spare and reading back in that forum. Yes, there's some stupid stuff (in particular about the noise issue, where you get some fairly ridiculous feuds), but there really is a wealth of information on there. There are a reasonable number of bird/wildlife photographers on there who are happy with their Sony A77s.
Personally I'm looking forward to replacing my Sony A700, but I have no personal experience with up-to-date Nikons or Canons which might be alternatives.
Andrea