2025 was one of the least active birding years for me since I started birding, thanks to a mix of getting a dog, getting a real job, and traveling less for work than I had previously. Things have picked up again in 2026–I've already seen twice the number of species, and I'm well on track to resume my streak of years with 1,000+ species. Most of that, however, has been outside the US, on various work and personal trips. Birding at home in DC has been slower, mostly for the same reasons as last year. Slow enough, in fact, that it's easier to just summarize it in a brief-ish blog post covering the past 9 months or so rather than try and break it up.
After getting back from the Philippines in November of last year, crappy winter weather and the end of migration meant that there was little to motivate me to do proper birding aside from my daily work commute/dog walking checklists. That continued until December 19, when a Greater White-fronted Goose was found near Hunting Creek on the boundary of Alexandria and Fairfax counties. I dragged myself out of the house just before sunset and managed to find it amidst a group of Canada Geese surprisingly near to shore, though annoyingly enough too far south for me to count on my Alexandria list. Still, it was a nice Virginia lifer for me, and a late-breaking addition to my paltry year list.
 |
| Greater White-fronted Goose |
 |
| Fish Crow |
The next day Vikas and I did some morning birding around the National Arboretum, where we had some of the usual winter sparrows like Dark-eyed Juncos and Chipping Sparrows and a surprise Orange-crowned Warbler, one of the two routinely wintering warblers in this area. We ran into some other birders doing a Christmas Bird Count (a birding tradition I've been meaning to get around to for the past 10 years or so but still never managed), who were very happy to be tipped off to a nice CBC bird. On the way out we saw an adorable American Kestrel perched on a dead snag.
 |
| Dark-eyed Junco |
 |
| Chipping Sparrows |
 |
| Northern Mockingbird |
 |
| Orange-crowned Sparrow |
 |
| American Kestrel |
The last new year bird for 2025 was a surprise–a Snowy Owl that showed up by the airport and was visible from across the Potomac at Hains Point. Nikki and I trekked out there the day after Christmas and managed to see it through my scope. At that distance it was nothing more than an owl-shaped white splotch on the rocks, but a DC tick is a DC tick.
 |
| Spot the Snowy Owl (hint: below and to the right of the airplane) |
A few days later was New Year's Day, so I went back to Hains along with a good portion of the DC birding community to try and start 2026 out with some good birds. The Snowy Owl was back near the airport, though this time even farther away to the point that a dozen or so birders spent about half an hour debating whether it was an owl or a plastic bag before it finally moved its head. Other than that the only notable birds were a couple of Cackling Geese and a Pied-billed Grebe I saw swim past in the river.
The Snowy Owl was notable enough to go out of my way for, but other than that I was reminded this year that I'm really not a twitcher. I long ago gave up any pretense of being a "serious birder" or lister, and birding for me is more about the experience of being out in nature, seeing cool wildlife, and having a good time with friends than it is about specific numbers. For the most part twitching is... not that. As a case in point, on January 1 someone found Red-flanked Bluetail in Great Falls Park about 30 minutes outside DC, a stupidly rare bird for this area or anywhere else in North America, as they breed in Siberia and winter in subtropical Eurasia. Even so it took me a few days to bother to go look for it, when Will and Vikas finally dragged me out on January 4. Vikas and Will got there 10 minutes before I did and got a quick glimpse before it disappeared into the thickets. We waited around for almost an hour with 100 or so other birders, before finally giving up and heading to Hains Point where someone had seen a Black-necked Grebe. Of course, the bluetail ended up being seen about 15 minutes after we gave up and left. On the other hand, we got great looks at the Black-necked Grebe after Danny Jacobs re-found it, a nice DC lifer me.
 |
| Cackling Goose |
 |
| Black-necked Grebe |
The bluetail stuck around until the end of March, but I just... didn't bother to go look for it. Admittedly I kind of wish I had, but again, twitching just isn't my thing. I probably would have tried harder if it was a lifer, but I've seen it on its usual breeding grounds on a layover in Shanghai and I can't be bothered to care enough about my US or ABA list. Ah well.
My only other twitch over the winter was a Great Cormorant that showed up for a couple of days in Jones Point Park in Alexandria. Accounts differ as to whether it was in DC or Virginia waters (with most people picking a side based on which list they care more about), but it was a nice bird for the area either way. Annoyingly enough I forgot to bring a battery for my camera when I went to look for it, so I had to settle for a bad digiscope picture in the rain.
 |
| Great Cormorant |
Later in January Will and I went for a nice morning birding walk at Kenilworth, one of the go-to winter birding spots for DC (and much nicer than Hains Point, even before the Trump administration got its grubby hands on it). The highlight was a pair of Northern Ravens that spent a while flying through the woods and checking out passing bikers and walkers. We also spotted a surprise American Beaver hanging out in the lagoon.
 |
| Northern Raven |
 |
| American Beaver |
At the end of January my hectic work travel resumed, and I spent a couple of weeks in Japan and Indonesia, after which winter birding in DC once again felt rather... uninspiring. Vikas, Will and I spent a day in mid-February twitching a couple of rarities (Snow Goose and Rough-legged Buzzard) and dipping on both, though we still had a nice day out looking for winter birds. Nikki and I later took Rio out to Teddy Roosevelt Island, where he proved himself once again a not-great birding companion, although we did still see the resident Barred Owls.
 |
| Bald Eagle |
 |
| Northern Flicker |
 |
| Red-winged Blackbird |
 |
| White-tailed Deer Rio wanted to make friends with |
 |
| Barred Owl |
 |
| He'll sit long enough for a picture (barely), but not long enough for us to stop and look at a bird |
March and April were full of travel as well; a couple weeks in the Philippines for work, vacation in Oaxaca, and then a quick trip to Kenya that's the topic of my last two blogs. Spring migration was properly starting by the time I got back to DC full time, although it took me a bit to recover from all the travel before I felt like heading out birding again.
On April 19 Nikki and I took an evening walk at Fort CF Smith Park, near my old apartment in Arlington, and enjoyed watching the Blue Jays and Common Grackles bathing in the pond. More exciting was my lifer Ring-necked Snake, which we found hiding under a piece of plywood.
 |
| Blue Jay |
 |
| Ring-necked Snake! |
 |
| Eastern Cottontail |
Despite dedicating several paragraphs of this blog to why I'm not a twitcher, I actually did do some more twitching this spring and summer. On May 23 DC's first Fork-tailed Flycatcher showed up at Hains Point (where else), and Nikki and I went to go look for it along with basically every other birder in a 10-mile radius. It was a gloomy, rainy day and we got there about half an hour after it had last been seen. Despite about a hundred birders trying to find it it remained hidden for 45 minutes (aside from a false alarm over an Eastern Kingbird) until myself and a few other birders decided to check the tree it was first found in. Someone pointed out a flycatcher hidden deep within the branches and eventually we were able to confirm that it was our bird, huddled against the rain. I'd seen Fork-tailed Flycatcher twice–once in Bolivia about a decade before I became a birder, and once in Costa Rica, but this was a US lifer for me so I was almost as happy to see it as I was to be able to get out of the rain afterwards.
 |
| A very bedraggled Fork-tailed Flycatcher |
That weekend we headed to Huntley Meadows with the usual gang for some birding and general naturalisting. Cassie in particular was so locked in on looking for salamanders that she didn't even bring binoculars. We didn't see any salamanders, but we did see lots of other cool wildlife: the resident breeding Red-headed Woodpeckers and Prothonotary Warblers, my first Ruby-throated Hummingbird of the year, and a gorgeous male Summer Tanager. The herps were the real highlight though, despite the lack of 'manders: Green Tree Frogs and Cope's Grey Tree Frogs hiding in the branches, Spring Peepers in the leaf litter, Pond Sliders in the ponds, a Common Ribbon Snake under a log, and best of all a tiny Common Wormsnake, which was a lifer for everyone there. As with every time I visit Huntley, I left wondering why I don't go there more often...
 |
| Red-headed Woodpecker |
 |
| Ruby-throated Hummingbird |
 |
| Prothonotary Warbler |
 |
| Summer Tanager |
 |
| Green Treefrog |
 |
| Common Wormsnake! |
 |
| Spring Peeper |
 |
| Common Ribbon Snake |
 |
| Cope's Grey Tree Frog |
 |
| Warty Harvestman (Leiobunum verrucosum) |
 |
| Horned Passalus Beetle (Odontotaenius disjunctus) |
 |
| Pond Slider |
 |
| Pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus) |
 |
| American Ermine Moth (Yponomeuta multipunctella) |
 |
| For some reason this is called an Aromatic Cherry Millipede (Apheloria corrugata) |
 |
| White-lip Globe Snail (Mesodon thyroidus) |
 |
| White-banded Fishing Spider (Dolomedes albineus) |
In early June Nikki and I headed up to Michigan for a weekend (yeah, yeah, not the DMV at all but I'm too lazy to do a separate blog post). It was mostly a chance to spend time with family, but we did do a morning visit to my old patch at Sleeping Bear Point before driving back to DC. The Piping Plovers had arrived and were sitting on their nests, all covered in the protective mesh the local park staff put around them to protect them from Merlin attacks. A nice male Red-breasted Merganser was also hanging out on the beach, and on the way back we saw a pair of Sandhill Cranes foraging in a meadow.
 |
| Red-breasted Merganser |
 |
| Piping Plover |
 |
| Carabus goryi |
 |
| Sandhill Crane |
On June 27 Vikas, Will and I did a morning birding expedition to Trillium Trail in the Virginia piedmont, a well-known spot for breeding Kentucky Warblers (which I'd never seen) and Cerulean Warblers (which I'd only ever heard). It was toward the end of breeding season and the hike started out fairly quiet, to the point that I began to suspect I would end the day with yet another heard-only record and nothing else to show but some nice bugs for iNaturalist. Thankfully our luck turned around: Will spotted a juvenile Cerulean Warbler foraging in the canopy above the trail, and soon after we were able to track down a gorgeous male Kentucky Warbler! That was one of very few proper lifers left for me in the eastern US, and the only one I'm likely to run into less than 2 hours away from DC.
 |
| A very dull juvenile Cerulean Warbler |
 |
| Kentucky Warbler! |
 |
| Northern Flicker |
 |
| Banded Olethreutes Moth (Olethreutes fasciatana) |
 |
| Rhododendron Leafhopper (Graphocephala fennahi) |
 |
| Dolichopus reflectus |
 |
| Nephrotoma eucera, I think |
 |
| Snowy Geometer Moth (Eugonobapta nivosaria) |
 |
| Common Eastern Physocephala (Physocephala tibialis) |
 |
| Leiobunum ventricosum, I think |
 |
| Baby Eastern Newt |
 |
| American Carrion Beetle (Necrophila americana) |
 |
| Dogbane Leaf Beetle (Chrysochus auratus) |
 |
| Speckled Sharpshooter (Paraulacizes irrorata) |
 |
| Canada Lily (Lilium canadense) |
I spent most of July inside with the aircon on sheltering from the oppressive DC summer heat. On July 26 Will finally dragged me out for a morning of birding to look for some local rarities, including a White Pelican on the Potomac and a Franklin's Gull at Fort Belvoir. We started the morning at Hunting Creek (the same place I'd seen the Greater White-fronted Goose, and were eventually were able to scope out the American White Pelican hanging out on a branch a half mile away in the Potomac. Not the most satisfying sighting, but it was a new Virginia bird for me so that was nice.
 |
| Yayyy American White Pelican |
The Franklin's Gull had been seen the previous day at Fort Belvoir, an Army base in Virginia a bit south of Alexandria. We headed over there, but upon arrival found out that entry was only permitted for people with military IDs; guest passes were formerly easy to get, but apparently not anymore. After looking through maps it turned out that the area the gull had been seen was accessible through a 2-mile hiking trail. I'm not sure what potential troublemakers would be discouraged by a short walk through the woods, but it's not like I expect rationality from Pete Hegseth anyway.
The walk was pleasantly shady, and the wildlife we saw along the way was more interesting than a Franklin's Gull would have been–which is a good thing because we dipped on the gull. There were a few White-eyed Vireos hanging out in some scrubby pines, and the usual breeding Acadian Flycatchers and Eastern Wood-Pewees. The coolest wildlife sighting of the morning was a damselfly that flew across the trail directly into the web of an orbweaver! We watched as the spider immediately trussed up the damselfly, securing its wings and legs. It was completely encased in spiderweb in less than a minute, and by the time we passed by on our way back all that was left was a pair of wings and a very satisfied spider.
 |
| White-eyed Vireo |
 |
| Northern Pearly-Eye (Lethe anthedon) |
 |
| Red-femured Spotted Orbweaver (Neoscona domiciliorum) subduing an Ebony Jewelwing (Calopteryx maculata) |
 |
| Xenolarius placitus, a very well-camouflaged planthopper |
 |
| Eastern Wood-Pewee |
 |
| Eastern Blacknose Dace (Rhinichthys atratulus) |
The next day Vikas and I went to a moth sheet event put on by Capital Nature in Potomac Overlook Park. Moth sheeting is the sort of thing I always tell myself I'm going to do but never quite get around to doing, mostly because I don't have a yard and there aren't too many natural areas around where I can hang up a moth sheet and hang out until 11 PM. Vikas finally dragged me to this one, and thank goodness he did. We got lots of moth and other insect lifers, and also got to connect with a number of other local naturalist-y people, including Matt Felperin who I'd "known" on social media for years but never met in person.
Tempting as it is to post 80 different insect pictures here, instead enjoy a couple of collages of the results of the moth sheet:
 |
| Clockwise from top left: Locus Underwing (Euparthenos nubilis), Canadian Melanolophia Moth (Melanolophia canadaria), Zebra Conchylodes Moth (Conchylodes ovulalis), Hebrew Moth (Polygrammate hebraicum), Pawpaw Webworm Moth (Omphalocera munroei) |
 |
| Clockwise from top left: Grapevine Beetle (Pelidnota magniferalis), Tylozygus bifidus, Erythroneura bistrata, Three-banded Leafhopper (Erythroneura tricincta), Eastern Bloodsucking Conenose (Triatoma sanguisuga) |
August was mostly quiet, but for another trip to Michigan I'll probably cover in a future fall-themed blog post. September started with a bang on the other hand, as I headed to Panama for my first proper birding-exclusive trip of the year. Stay tuned for more posts on that very soon...
Comments
Post a Comment