2017 Birding Year in Review: Wren it Rains it Pours

Hola bird fans. How was your 2017? Good? Not good? Extremely not good? Are you ready for 2018? Yeah, I am too. But I can't go into the New Year until I've left the old year behind and reflected on some of the best and most memorable birds we birded and blogs we blogged, as is our tradition.



First, some statistics: we did 44 blogs last year- a significant number for sure, but it represents an overall decline in blog production. What happened? Well, we really slowed down around the time your editor here got a new and somewhat more demanding job, leaving fewer hours in the week to bird and to write about it. Something we'll have to be figuring out going forward is whether or not this is a more sustainable pace, or if we'll be able to jump back up to higher blog numbers.



The most popular post this year was the surprise micro-viral Xmas sensation, Bird Ornament Detective. I was proud of how this one turned out, but especially of the concept, which was a spontaneously arrived-at rare bit of 'relevant content'. And I can tell you that I am for sure going to be Merlin-ing more non-bird objects. It would be good if I could more regularly produce blogs tied to current events. For more of this see my SuperbOwl post on the Atlanta Falcons, and my math-based arguments on why they, as a group of Falcons, would easily defeat the New England Patriots. As with so many of my bird-based predictions, this turned out to not be correct.



Our second most popular post was our BUrdZZFEED What Bird Are You? Quiz. Another outside the box idea that I'm glad I did, although it's possible that some of the popularity has to do with people actually mistaking my website for Buzzfeed. In this category see also my exhaustive breakdown of the State Bird Power Ranking (part 1 and 2). And of course there were the .gifs- both of the surprisingly bird-heavy Labyrinth and of a bunch of music videos. Even though they stubbornly refuse to achieve viral sensation status, I'm really happy with the template I've established for these .gif articles.

Probably the best thing that happened to our bird blog in 2017 is that we inspired some fan art for the first time. That was on our entry for Pyrrhuloxia, the excellent desert bird who should still just have a different name already, and it was done by the talented Ayelette Raviv. It was also one of my favorite photos of the year- for more good good bird pics, check out Verdin, and especially Greater Roadrunner.



Desert birds were something of a theme this year, and that's no coincidence. This year I've found that for better or worse most of my birds came from 3-4 big trips somewhere else rather than local birding. In this case that would trips to the Caribbean, South Texas, and most recently Baja California Sur, Mexico. This might be because I have less time for local birding or that I've already gotten so many of the photo-cooperative and easily identifiable local birds. Although I will say that when I was going through my photos for this post, I was heartened to see that there's still a lotta birds in the hopper.

So enough hemming and hawing, how did we do with our resolutions from last year? Honestly, it's a mixed bag. I actually did better with conquering old resolutions, such as the Painted Bunting, the Golden Eagle, and the aforementioned Roadrunner, rather than actually sticking with what I said I'd do last year. The only one I can really say I did was 'do some solo birding', which was what my trip to Texas was, but does doing it once even count? I definitely didn't do more local birding, if possible I got less confident in my camera knowledge, and never really approached the idea of showing my work anywhere outside of the context of this blog. But I feel like the good birds I saw this year have to count for something.

So let's give me a score of: Hangin' in There for 2017.



What about next year? Well, 1. I want to put in some effort on the less glamorous local birds. Really see about some of those ducks, sparrows, and finches who show up on every local e-bird list and actually learn them. Maybe I'll even ID a gull correctly.

2. Come up with a schedule that works for me and incorporates some of the changes I want to make to this blog. Right now I'm thinking maybe 2 new birds per month and 1-2 entries that are more timely/bigger/weirder.

And you know what, let's just do those 2 resolutions. Another thing I've learned this year is that I'm happy with my current level of birding involvement, and that while I love the hobby there is such a thing as taking it too far for me. 2018- all about keeping it stable here on bird blog, and hopefully out in the world.