#2025 Big Year in Review

 Happy New Year!!! 2026, can you believe it? Wow has the time gone by fast.  This post is a recap of the year that was #BigYear2025🐦🐦, all the fun stuff, places visited, good times and future plans. Below are some of the highlights.

NC boat trip, morning 2

  

• 9 lifers-- OMG OMG Holy Cow; Wow!! Six lifers in AZ and 3 on a boat trip in NC waters. It's nice to see even more life birds in ONE YEAR, then the previous five years combined! Which ones will I see in 2026??     
•  2025--9, 2024--4, 2023--0, 2022--0, 2021--3, 2020--5,   2019--10, 2018--7, 2017--18, 2016--12, 2015--13 new and in 2014 I had 29 lifers. 
• I traveled to southeast Arizona and did a North Carolina palegic trip this year for birding and vacation/bird trips. I birded alot around Ohio, but no new lifers. I got 78 birds during the January 100 challenge. I am still thankful of the trips taken, birds seen, and friends I've been with making memories and good blog posts! Thank you all and GOD Bless. That puts me at #640 Life Birds for continental ABA, which means, the lower 48 states and Canada. For Hawaii, I have a separate list of 21 birds!                                                                                                                    

My ABA Bird of the Year is . . . .the Desertas Feas Petral  code 3  

one of three subspecies from Africa, #640

My first pelagic trip was Aug 1991. I went out with Buddy and Red & Louise. I was on my way to 500 birds, probably 480 range. We went on a trip out of Ocean City, MD. I got all the shearwaters and Band-rump, Leach's, Wilson's and hardest White-faced storm petrel.  Fast forward 34 years later. Myself and my Ohio birder friends, wanted to do the famous Stormy Petrel II pelagic out of OBX, NC. So with that, plans where set and paid for a late summer blitz, with us going back to back days!  That's two 12 hour trips.  We dodge the Hurricane the week before, threaded the needle for late August. Friday's trip was very birdy!! We saw Brown Booby, Long-tailed Jaegar, and then one of the guides yelled, FEA's PETRAL!!!   I also saw the main target birds Black-capped Petrel and newly split Scopolis Shearwater, from Cory's Shearwater, two species now. 

*Scopolis Shearwater, #550 -- replaced Cordilleran flycatcher seen in 2014. That bird is now lumped back with Western flycatcher. So a new split replaced a new lump.

• My Ohio Bird of the Year is . . . . Ross / Snow & Goose flyover, code 1 

            

Holy Cow, what is that? 

Black tip Snow, all white short neck Ross

                                                              

Its down to the end of the year, and I'm outside on Sunday Nov 30th, very windy and out of no where I see this HUGE V in the sky!! I run and get my camera and bins, and turns out to be a large flock of Snow Geese with several Ross Geese mixed in. Several birders reported them home flyovers heading due west. Crazy, Ross Goose was FOY, but both are lifer YARD list birds, so BOOM. Ohio Birds of the year 2025 

• 3 states visited--Ohio (+214 foys)  Arizona (+71 birds)   North Carolina (+29 birds)

• 314 total species--Wow, I got 64 more species then 2023, and that's because Texas is always key and plus 3 lifers. Then Nevada with 42 birds with another lifer was huge!! This year we got the mountain birds too except Townsends Solitaire!! I did keep track of my "Ohio only" birds this year and got 175!     This puts me at a 312.6 species per year average over 13 years.                        

• STATS  In 2013--338; 2014--359; 2015--322; 2016--360; 2017--377; 2018--353; 2019--321; 2020--340; 2021--279; 2022-206; 2023--216; 2024--280; 2025--314

Action at back of boat

Forster's Tern 

Pilot Whales, night hunters, squid down low

Scopolis Shearwater, #550

Black-capped Petrel, #639

Bodie Island Lighthouse, 1872

Beach House #, no shit

Team OHIO, some damn fine hardcore birders

Madera Canyon, historical hotspot

Gambill Birding Dynasty, PJ, STIZZY40

*Mexican Duck, #605 -- replaced Iceland Gull seen in 2018. That bird is now lumped back with Thayer's Gull. So again, a new split replaced a new lump

I saw the newly split Mexican Duck in Tubac, AZ. It can also be seen in LRGV, TX along the Rio Grande River.  

Below is a list of some of the new first of year birds(FOYs) I saw in Ohio, during the last 45 days of birding in 2025.

#200 Philadelphia Vireo, Blendon last of fall migration Sept

#201 Wilsons Snipe, New Albany Taylor Farms
#202 Savannah Sparrow, Teal trail Oct.                                      

#203 Green-winged Teal, miss in Jan.

#204 Winter Wren, Westerville park

#205American Pipit, October fields in Licking cty
#206 Northern Shrike, back again! November
#207 Rufous Hummingbird, rare fall visitor
#208 Ross Goose, home flyover
#209 Snow Bunting, had to wait for snowfall 12/13
#210 Lapland Longspur, ditto
#211 Great Horned Owl, heard only 530am 

#212 Greater White fronted Goose, Prairie Oaks 12/27

#213 Pine Sisken, birders backyard feeder

#214 Peregrine Falcon, OSU hospital

**heard only 2025**
 Sora rail, Yellow billed Cuckoo, Great horned owl, Common Nighthawk, YBBS, Fox sparrow, Sedge Wren, Veery, Worm-eating, Kentucky, Hooded Warblers, Henslow Sparrow, 

Rarities seen in 2025- Code 3 or higher birds this year 
          

            Berrylline Hummingbird 4, Rufous-backed Robin 3,     Desertas Feas Petrel 3,              

• Misses--a lot of them, especially Ohio species. I birded OHIO a lot more due to no fulltime work since March. Warbler, sparrows, and shorebirds. I really liked my May trip to Clear Creek for breeding warblers.  I got to bird at Magee Marsh and Howards Marsh early on May 8th. Again, it was early and rainy windy day, but had good numbers. 

Litte Blue Heron, male at Griggs Res. 

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Rufous hummer, Franklin cty

beautiful color

• 2026 trips--So far planned trips, but likely to change. 

            1.  Arizona, Washington, someplace??
           

            2. Ohio--Biggest week in American Birding- attended 2023, 24', 25'
         
           3. Chase a rarity. Can this be the year of a Code 4 or 5 chase?? 

           4  Winter driving trip to Delaware state, Cape May Ferry for winter         lifers Dovkie, Razorbill

            

Thank you to all my friends, family and birders for supporting me these last 13 years. What a ride. Could not of predicted it myself where I would be in the end of 2025.  So here is to the future and more time to get back to Retracing the Steps with the Gambill Birding Dynasty.

Cheers

Brad

I'd like to dedicate this 2025 year and page to my mother-in -law, Denise, RIP.