For Owl'd Lang Syne: The 2018 Birding Year in Review

Happy New Year!

Song Sparrow

 It may be almost February in the rest of the world, but here on bird blog we're still processing the events (and birds) of 2018. That's right, it's time for the hotly anticipated annual 'year in review' post, now with less to review than ever before! But fewer blog posts doesn't necessarily make a not-as-good blog, as we'll hopefully see today.

American Robin

To start with, let's crunch some numbers. To start with, it should probably be acknowledged that only 26 posts were made last year, about half of the average from previous years. What happened? Well, I had a baby, and looking at the number of posts, you can probably tell precisely when. I talked a little bit about fatherhood on my first post-baby blog on the Nanday Parakeet, but my baby has been (shockingly) a slightly higher priority than birds these last few months.

Above: A Rock Wren, the first bird I got a good picture of while having a baby strapped to me

That's not to say we're looking at a permanent dip in blog productivity (or blogductivity [of blogducktivity, when I'm blogging about ducks specifically). I think we'll get better, in the coming year, and maybe get this bad boy back up to bi-weekly.

Great Egret

Birding Highlights 2018

But enough about boring stuff like new human life and having a complete shift of self and perspective, let's talk about the birds! Undoubtedly the highlight of my birding year was a trip down to LA and the nearby Channel Islands National Park. Did I see the Island Scrub Jay? Yes I did, and it was a peak birding experience for me that probably non-bird-people will not understand. Can't see this little guy anywhere else. That's where many of my most exciting birds came from this year, although there were also some cool leftovers from my November 2017 trip to Mexico that didn't get posted until this year.

Double-crested Cormorant

The most popular blog of the year was without a doubt the marginally topical If Birds Were Tracks on Kanye's College Drop Out, followed pretty quickly by the extremely nonsense-filled Bird Cup/World Cup Prediction post (spookily accurate though!) Another favorite of mine was the interest-combining The Birdchelor, which imagined birds as The Bachelor contestants. Did I perhaps cause someone to start a new twitter account with my constant #birdingthebachelor tweets or was it just fortuitous timing? We'll probably never know.

House Finch, my vote for 'bird most likely to be confused for something interesting on first glance'

The exciting thing about these blogs, which were some of my favorites of the year, is that they were ambitious and funny, and crucially did not rely heavily on me having good pictures of new birds. I talked about this last year a little, but it's been harder to find unique birds locally, and my travel perspectives are only looking more restrictive. These posts give me an ideal way forward, and I already have my idea for the next two posts of 2019. Also filed to good news is that the blog actually appears to be getting (slightly) (gradually) more popular, with each post getting a good deal more hits on average than in previous years. Shocking, but nice to see.

Red-shouldered Hawk (?Probably?)

What else do we do on this year review thing? Uhhh, pictures! Yes, those! I like my Wrentit pictures, which is a challenging bird to photograph, and took quite a lot of patience to get. I also was excited to get the Bullock's Oriole shot at Mount Burdall, which quickly joined Wetlands Edge as one of my favorite local birding spots. That's where a lot of the photos that accompany this essay are from, by the way. Wood Duck was good too. Some of my best pictures were in those Birdchelor and Kanye posts, actually, since they didn't have the restriction of needing to be pictures of new birds.

White-tailed Kite

Birding Resolutions

Lastly, let's talk resolutions. I'll start by saying I'm glad I set the bar really low for myself last year. The resolutions, in case you don't want to click the link, were 'find a new schedule that works for my changing life', and 'bird local'. And honestly, I think I kinda did both, sort of. Like, given the circumstances. For 2018 I give my self a B- for Effort! So what do I want to do this year?

American Kestrel

Well, as I've been alluding to, I want to get back up to 1. 2 posts per month, eventually. And for my other goal, let's try to 2. recommit to filling in the more common birds from my area that I still haven't posted here year. It's gonna mean squinting at some photos of gulls and sparrows, but I figure I'll have to do the work eventually. Jen Sanford has been making some really interesting points on Instagram (which I'm still not on) on the value and ethics of birding close to home, and I might try to go into it with that attitude (although maybe I'll go with more like a 20 mile radius). And I think that'll do it. Anything more ambitious would just be hubris.... although... I do really want to try and get that Snail Kite when I go to visit family in Florida this year. A blogger can dream, after all.

American Crow

See you all next month!