Roy, have you done any tests to see just how much more you can get out of this camera using RAW compared to jpg? From reading many threads/wars about it, it appears to me that some cameras need it more than others, i.e. some do a much better job of getting the jpg right than others. I'm wondering where the SX50 lies on that scale, because the penalties for using RAW aren't insignificant - slower continuous shooting speed (I believe), less shots per memory card, more time spent uploading and processing.
I have not done any specific test but would be sure that you can get more out of a SX50 RAW than a jpeg providing you are willing to spend the time processing. With various DSLR's I have shot nothing but RAW for some 8 years now and could not even image shooting jpeg's (I have found it most strange dealing with jpegs on the SX40/50). I actually enjoy the processing side of things so for me it is no hardship processing RAW's. I suppose the average time I take to process a RAW is a few minutes but I am more than willing to take 30 minutes processing a single image if that's what it takes to make it presentable.
I will admit that the RAW's from the SX50 (and SX40) do not give as much to play with as a DSLR due to the tiny sensor not capturing the same amount of detail but on the other hand it is perhaps more essential still to squeeze every last drop of IQ from it.
The SX50 does do a reasonable job with the jpeg's. What I do not like about shooting jpegs is that you are letting the Camera decide how to process the image, I would much sooner make my own decisions. For example I do a lot of my processing selectively via layer masks ( things like sharpening, contrast, noise reduction, highlights/shadows, colour corrections .......). If you let the Camera do it then it will apply all these things globally.
A typical example for birds is noise reduction, if you just apply it globally you could end up destroying detail in the bird - what I almost always do is to apply it just to the background, another great advantage with doing this with a cam like the SX50 is that you can blur the background so giving a more pleasing bokeh (these small sensor Cam's have a lot more DOF than a DSLR so you do not get the blurred BG for bird shots unless the BG is a really long way off).
Another important thing for birds is sharpening, if you just let the Camera do it via a jpeg then it will apply to everything in the shot equally and if you have the sharpening turned up too much you will get those ugly halos which wrecks an image. By doing it yourself selectively you can not only apply it just to just selective parts of the image but you can also apply in different degrees to say the bird itself (often you may need to sharpen a birds eye/head more than its body). By using a layer mask you can make sure that you do not end up with sharpening halos by apply the sharpening exactly where you want it.
As far as penalties for using RAW they are completely insignificant for me:-
The continuous shooting (with AF) is slower if you shoot RAW but as far as I am concerned even if you use jpeg it is next to useless. It struggling to reach 2 fps and even then the screen/viewfinder goes black between shots - I resigned myself a long time ago that the SX50 was basically a single shot Camera. BTW with the 7D for birds I always shoot in high burst mode but IMO it is a complete waste of time with these little superzooms (the SX40 was a little faster than the SX50 but still a waste of time IMO).
As far as less shots per card goes, with the price of memory cards these days I cannot image that anyone would be remotely bothered by this. With my DSLR I would not dream of going on a shoot without at least three or four cards on me. With the SX50 I have a couple of 8GB cards which is more than enough for my needs, if it was not I would buy more cards - they are 'cheap as chips' these day. BTW with a 8GB card you can get more than 400 SX50 RAW's.
As for uploading time, again this is no problem whatsoever for me, I have been used to uploading RAW files for years from my DSLR's and they are bigger files than those from the SX50. Up to a while ago I was still running a very old PC with USB 2 ports and sometimes it would take 15 minutes or so to download a card full of 7D RAW's - I just set the upload going and do something else until it has finished, so no big deal. Now a days I have a PC with USB3 which is 10x quicker than USB2 so that 15 minutes is now reduced to 90 seconds! - a similar number of SX50 RAW's would take less time still. Having to wait a bit longer for RAW's to download is a small penalty for getting better IQ.
As far extra processing time goes I have already said that I enjoy the processing side of it so no problem whatsoever for me. Everyone has to make their own judgement as to if the extra time spent processing RAW's is worth it - for me the whole aim of bird photography is to get the best possible IQ from a shot and RAW most certainly gives you that providing you know how to process.
At the end of the day it is up to the individual as to what they want, some folks cannot be bothered with doing any processing and are not particularly too worried about IQ which is fair enough, each to their own I guess.
BTW I have not even picked-up my SX50 for over a month (this time of the year I mainly shoot macro or landscape with the DSLR) but the last few times I did use it was for snapping distant birds and I shot exclusively at 1800mm so obviously Jpegs (the fact that they were mostly all c##p and I ended up binning almost all of them was no surprise LOL).
On the general question of IQ for my Flickr Photostream and 500px gallery shown below in my signature all the shots were taken in RAW. OK for a lot of folk they maybe fairly average I will admit but they most certainly are better than if I had been using Jpegs.