So long, 2025! This past year has been one of extreme highs & lows – lots to celebrate and remember warmly, but also losses we continue to grieve and battles we continue to fight. I reached some notable milestones in my birding career and enjoyed some wonderful travels. I added a few new birds to my Newfoundland list (something that gets harder to do each year), and even ended the year leading my 40th tour (!) for my friends at Eagle-Eye Tours in one of my favourite destinations. I met so many wonderful people along the way, shared a boatload of amazing places and wildlife encounters with them and got to spend precious time with a few friends (old & new). Our family created a lot of special memories throughout 2025, and I treasured more than ever the moments we spent exploring, playing games or just hanging out in each other’s company. But we also faced some health challenges in our household and had to say good-bye to one of the dearest people in our lives. Life is like that – ups, downs, bumps and all. But here’s wishing that 2026 brings us all more peace, comfort, fun and adventure than any year before it. Happy New Year to all our friends and family, far and wide.
Below are 25 photos highlighting just some of the many things that 2025 brought my way 🙂
As usual, my birding year kicked off in early January when I hosted another WINGS tour group here on the Avalon Peninsula. We enjoyed many highlights, but Willow Ptarmigan like this one were favourites among them.
My January was pretty full with BirdTheRock clients here to enjoy winter birding – and weather! We had an unseasonably mild winter here on “the rock”, as this photo from early January illustrates. The hillsides above Quidi Vidi village, in St. John’s, were nearly devoid of snow a full week into the new year (yet blanketed in the white stuff at the same time this year).
I spent three full weeks in Belize & Guatemala this winter, leading back-to-back trips for Eagle-Eye Tours. Among the many perks was getting to spend some quality time with friends and co-leaders I’ve met there over the years, including these great guys!
The diversity of birds and other wildlife we see on that tour is astounding and it’s impossible to pick even a few favourites. We found more than 300 bird species this year (including three that were “lifers” for me) and enjoyed some of the best looks I’ve had at many awesome critters.
One of my favourite parts of this tour is the setting at Tikal – birding in the lush jungle and breathtaking ruins of this ancient Mayan city. We were lucky on one day to observe a traditional Mayan ritual being performed in this still revered cultural centre.
Perhaps the most exciting and certainly most unexpected bird of 2025 was this Greater Sand-Plover that spent several days in April at Biscay Bay. Initially discovered by Richard Thomas, it was a first record not just for the province but for Canada. I was very relieved when it stuck around for a few days so I could finally carve out some time to go “twitch” it 🙂
One of the best parts of birding is being able to share it with friends, so I was thrilled when my pal Paul Lagasi was able to pop down from Ottawa and score the Greater Sand-Plover with me – what a bird!!
It was with immeasurable sadness that we lost my mother-in-law, Verna, in May. She was a vibrant, funny and loving person who was part of almost everything we did as a family. Her passing left a hole in our lives, and in our home, that we are still figuring out how to navigate.
THE famous Steller’s Sea Eagle spent a fourth summer in Newfoundland – this time in two new areas closer to St. John’s. I enjoyed seeing it a few times in North River, but my best views were in early June during our American Birding Association “Birders’ Camp”!
Here is the ABA group after an awesome encounter with an awesome bird (the Steller’s Sea Eagle, above).
BirdTheRock enjoyed one of its busiest summers yet this year, hosting more than 125 visiting birders from across the globe and experiencing so many wonderful moments in nature. While the “usual suspects” made lots of crowd-pleasing appearances, we also enjoyed a few less common birds including this locally scarce Winter Wren on the outskirts of St. John’s.
The Eagle-Eye Tours “Grand Newfoundland” trip is always a highlight of my summer – getting to share so many of my favourite places with folks visiting from all over. Here you can see my group overlooking the gem that is Bonne Bay.
One of the biggest highlights of my summer wasn’t a bird, but a Northern Right Whale that I spotted at close range at St. Shott’s. This is a very rare animal in Newfoundland waters, and one I’ve been dreaming of finding for many years – I’m pretty sure my group thought I had gone nuts when I first saw it and screamed! Lol. I was hoping we could identify the individual, but was just as happy to learn it didn’t match any in the database so might be an undocumented individual – adding to the population of this very endangered species.
In August, I returned to New Brunswick for another Eagle-Eye Tours adventure. While there were lots of highlights, my own biggest thrill was a short but close encounter with Cory’s Shearwater in the Bay of Fundy – by far my best views yet of this enigmatic seabird.
After a very busy summer, getting to spend some quality time with my family is so very important to me. This summer we tried something new – white water rafting on the Exploits River (Grand Falls-Windsor)! It was an absolute blast, and despite not being super comfortable in the water I was able to laugh off getting thrown into the rapids a couple times 😉 The girls are like fish, and Emma was all smiles the whole time.
Late summer is also berry picking season, and while we didn’t squeeze in as much as we sometimes do, Susan & I did manage to get out and pick a few gallons of delicious Grates Cove blueberries. The berries were outdone only by the company and the landscape.
I didn’t encounter many moose this year – for the most part that’s a good thing since I’m often driving the highways, but I always hope for a good sighting with my clients. This young bull was very cooperative when we came across it on the barrens near Cape Race – although it was with a birding buddy of mine, and not visitors from away.
My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2025, so we gifted them with a family photo session that we did in September with beautiful fall colours as our backdrop. A big thank-you to Vanessa (Pretty Pictures) for making us all look great!
Fall is my favourite time of year for birding here in Newfoundland – a time when migration is in full swing and you never know what vagrants you might find. I enjoyed a few scarce and rare birds around the Avalon this fall, this Yellow-throated Vireo being one of them – just the third I’d ever seen in the province.
My hands-down best bird of the fall, though, was this Bar-tailed Godwit discovered by our “west coast” birders in Stephenville Crossing. Just the third record for Newfoundland, and a new bird for my provincial, Canada and North America lists! It was worth the long haul across the island with my buddy Chris, even if we were a bit cramped in his sporty Miata (which wasn’t quite built for birding). We also had another moose encounter on that trip – this one on the highway and much too close for comfort.
Another fun bird this fall was a Vesper Sparrow at Cape Spear (the most easterly point in North America). This was just my second ever for Newfoundland, and with a little patience it was very cooperative for photographs while I sat quietly on a trail and walked right up to me.
In December, I headed down to Trinidad & Tobago – it was my seventh time leading a tour there, and my milestone 40th tour ever for Eagle-Eye Tours. My travels have taken me to plenty of awesome birding destinations, but T&T remains one of my favourites with a wonderful diversity of habitats, diversity, birds and wildlife. At one point we enjoyed spectacular views of this young Ornate Hawk-Eagle – especially fun for me since it has been a nemesis of sorts for quite some time.
Among many highlights on Tobago was a fantastic encounter with displaying Blue-backed Manakins – my best views yet of this cute but often difficult-to-see bird.
After returning home to Newfoundland, I caught up with the province’s first ever California Gull. Originally discovered by Alvan Buckley in late October, it had disappeared for weeks and eluded most birders – including me. I have a soft spot for gulls, so finally finding this one and adding a new bird to my Newfoundland list (my third and final for 2025) was a special moment.
One of the last highlights of the year was participating in another St. John’s Christmas Bird Count. The longest running citizen science project in the world, it’s become a holiday tradition for me and a rewarding way to share the season with my birding friends. Pictured here is the sunrise that Bruce Mactavish & I witnessed from our perch at Robin Hood Bay. IYKYK 😉
A huge thank-you for this splendor.