I agree with Artie, 600 is THE ultimate birding lens and the new one weighs as much as the old 500 making it perfectly hand-holdable. A 300mm lens is just too short for general bird photography unless you shoot at the zoo or captive birds. There is no way of getting around this fact. If it was possible to even get close to the performance of 600mm or 500mm prime with a 300 and 2X TC that's what everybody would do...you may not be very critical about pixel level sharpness but AF will be painful no matter what generation lens/TC/camera body you use. Slow is the word.
As for body I am going to skip 1DX as the resolution is too low for my application as the primary body. My goal is to nail faster and faster birds in flight so I want to use the naked lens as much as possible for maximum AF performance. The 1DX will kill all the extra reach I will get from my new 600 and put me back where I am with MKIV and 500 today so it also defeats the purpose of the extra 8 grand I am spending to upgrade my primary lens.
I will wait until Canon can makes a high speed and high resolution FF sensor with at least 27 Mpixel (equal to MKIV pixel size) to upgrade my 1D4. In the mean time if I like the 5D3 AF I will use it as my backup body for low-light conditions, similar AF but more resolution than the 1DX. I think MKIV is still the best overall birding camera.
The 1DX is just not a birding camera IMO (well, unless the AF is SO much better than the MKIV making up for all other short comings and justifying the 7-grand MSRP)
Although 1DX and a 600 would be fun to handhold from a boat or when standing in the water in Tampa bay, almost 20 grand in your hands so you will hold tight ;)
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