I can also put in a vote for the Canon 80D and the 100-400 II lens.
A bit more than a year ago, I decided to focus my photography much more on birds, and decided for various reasons to invest in a suitable set of equipment from scratch. The object was to purchase a single decent body and lens which would become my bird/wildlife telephoto photography system (I have other equipment I use for other types of photography). I was not looking at the high end but rather for something which was a good, solid middle ground 'advanced amateur' option. I have no particular brand loyalty and did not care (purely from a brand perspective) whether the system came from Canon, Nikon, or any other.
Some of the considerations I had were:
DSLR vs Mirrorless - an easy one because I don't like electronic view finders (exit Sony, Olympus, Fujifilm and Panasonic);
APSC vs full frame - tough, but in the end I opted for APSC for the additional focal length (400mm actual gives me 600mm or more depending on crop ratio, and 600mm equivalent was the minimum I was prepared to purchase).
Weight - need to be able to carry for long periods and hand hold (also relevant to full frame vs APSC issue)
Zoom vs prime - I figured a top quality zoom was more versatile despite giving up a little speed and possibly optical quality
Support levels - to me this ruled out Pentax - I couldnt see much evidence that there is a wide network of Pentax users and support in Australia (although I may be wrong).
I quite quickly came down to three bodies which at the time were the Canon 80D, Canon 7DmkII and Nikon 7200, and several possible lenses which were whittled down to the Canon 100-400 and the Nikon 80-400 both of which seemed to be well reviewed. I think I could have lived quite happily with any of these systems but decided on the 80D/100-400 combination as being the best set of compromises at the time to meet my particular needs. In addition, at the time with cash backs and seasonal cost reductions it was considerably cheaper than the Nikon opposition. Also, when I tried the two systems back to back in the dealers, the Canon was a better 'fit' for my face with a slightly more protruding viewfinder. An added bonus is the slightly longer focal length available due to the slightly higher crop factor of the Canon compared to the Nikon. I don't expect to upgrade this for a while, although I expect I will look closely at the next iteration of the 7D system if and when it comes out.
All systems are compromises - the 80D and 100-400II combination seemed to be the best combination at the time to suit my set of compromises. Nothing has caused me to regret this so far.
This is not a perfect system. For example I would prefer if the focus hunted a bit less using single point focus in dim light at 400mm and where the background is confused (eg moving leaves behind the bird). I suspect the 7D MkII has a better focusing system, and is more robust overall. However, the 80D is capable of excellent raw digital files, and I think the 100-400 is an excellent lens and capable of visibly higher resolution than most if not all other lenses I own (with the possible exception of macro lenses). The lens is also very solidly built. I can honestly say that it is virtually never the system which limits my photography.
Cheers
Simon