Happy New Year everybody! As is customary at this time of year, I am going to pause to take a look back at the events of the past 12 months. So, if you’re ready, let’s go.
January was on the cold side and we saw some sort of precipitation on every weekend. The flock of mourning doves that comes to eat on my deck swelled to 31 birds and with that much food all in one place the local Cooper’s hawk was a regular visitor as well. Nighttime temperatures were consistently below freezing and the lowest temperature that I recorded at my house was minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit on Jan. 22. The list of bird species visiting my feeders topped out at 29, which was 2 species short of the record. The notes in my red journal identify a “lack of winter finches” as the issue.
February saw a continuation of the generally cold and cloudy weather, but not as cold as we have seen in some years. Feb. 1 started off with snow and I managed to observe 20 bird species on that day alone. We experienced one day of minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit on Feb. 2, but that seemed to be a fluke. Most days saw low temperatures below freezing, but well above 0 degrees. The generally unpleasant weather on the weekends may have impacted my birding efforts. I finished the month with only 27 bird species on my list; eight species shy of the record.
March started on a Saturday and I managed to observe 25 bird species on that one day alone. The first common grackles and Canada geese of the year appeared on that first day. By mid-March the temperatures were climbing into the 60s and 70s, and I noted the joy of seeing Eastern bluebirds doing a little house hunting in my yard. Carolina wrens were becoming a staple species at my feeders and migratory birds slowly trickled in, but I only managed 35 bird species, which was three short of the record.
April and May are always amazing months of activity and I actually managed to set a new record for bird species observed in the month of April with a total of 52 species for the month. I also made the most exciting observation of the year when I encountered a female mink moving her babies to a new den. However, the main theme of these two months was the rain. One brief pause on May 17 (the 28th anniversary of this column) allowed me to get down to the “thinking chair” and observe seven newly arrived migratory species, including ovenbirds and gray catbirds, but rain continued to dominate the weekends.
June was another busy month and the migrants continued to pour in. However, the rain just wouldn’t let up and my time outside was curtailed. As a result, I only managed to observe 52 species of birds in my yard, putting me six species short of the record for June. July might have been a good month in my yard, but I was away from home on three of the month’s four weekends, one of which was spent at my brother’s camp up in Maine. I took thousands of photos on that trip, a few of which I was able to share with you.
August, September and October became something of a blur for me. I haven’t made this widely known, but I was diagnosed with cancer at the very end of July. This definitely flipped the “surreal” switch in my head and (as one might find reasonable) I saw a general dip in all of my birding numbers. I had an operation on Sept. 15 and then spent the next eight weeks recovering. I sort of missed out on autumn this year, but I am happy to report that I am completely cancer free and doing well. Whew!
I responded to my release back into the wild by logging a record 38 bird species in November. The summer had been generally dry, but the month started on a rainy Saturday morning. On Nov. 3 I spotted a purple finch at my feeders. The first snow fell at my house on Nov. 6, and evening grosbeaks appeared on Nov. 7. I saw a white-crowned sparrow — an unusual bird so late in the year — on Nov. 8 and by Nov. 11, I recorded the first time that I have ever reached 30,000 photos in a single year. Among them were photos of fox sparrows that made a surprise appearance in my yard.
And now we reach December. The winter finches that drove me to a new species record for November seem to have disappeared. I had hoped that their discovery of my feeders would have kept them coming back for food, but there has been no sign of any of them. As a result, my December bird list has been languishing at 30 species — just one species shy of the all-time record — for two weeks. Since this is the last time that I will write to you in 2025, we’ll have to wait and see if any last-minute magic struck.
I won’t be sorry to see 2025 in the rearview mirror. Too much drama! Looking ahead, I am working on a special project that I hope to tell you about soon, and I am already preparing new journals to record all of the year’s interesting events. Let’s all start the year strong and have a great 2026.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 28 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more information visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.