As the sun sets on 2025 and the birds have gone quiet in the dark, I’m reflecting on probably the worst year of birding I’ve had in more than two decades. No trips even to local hotspots, no lifers, no new yard birds… But why, and how can I make 2026 a better year to fly?

Why 2025 Just Wasn’t a Birding Year

The year began with great optimism as I finished my chemotherapy for lung cancer in early December 2024. That let me recover from my last infusion before the holidays, and on January 1, I began the targeted therapy drug Osimertinib (Tagrisso) to keep the cancer from returning.

It’s a small, relatively innocuous pill, but has had a bigger impact on the year than I ever imagined. The side effects are brutal, from ever-present gut issues to skin conditions to lethargy to brittle and peeling nails and more. The constant barrage of unpleasantness greatly dampened any enthusiasm I might have had for leaving the house, and indeed, I’ve been much more isolated through the year than I expected: no volunteering, no day trips, no “just because” getaways.

Instead, the year became a struggle to manage the different side effects with lifestyle adjustments, supplements, and medication. In addition to that one innocuous pill, I also now take nine additional pills every day just to try (not always successfully) to stay ahead of the impact. On bad days, I may take a half-dozen more than that.

On top of the health struggles, work had to take some precedence. While my freelance clients were beyond understanding and patient through my active treatment of surgery and chemotherapy, I now feel obligated to do as much as possible to make up for what I failed to do the year before. I’ve adapted some work techniques and implemented new strategies, and overall I’ve been fairly successful there with more than 840 articles written just in 2025 (yes, I do write that much as a full-time freelancer, regardless of other challenges).

It’s not quite the totals I’d hoped to hit and there has been much left undone on the to-do list, but at least it’s a start to return to whatever counts as normalcy these days.

In other life, several projects had to happen, including some emergency repairs, an unexpected relocation, and the day-to-day of living: laundry, cleaning, cooking, paying bills, family obligations, etc. But I persevered.

The Birding I Did Do

What there hasn’t been much time for over the past twelve months is birding. Oh, I’ve kept the bird feeders filled intermittently and tried to remember to clean the bird bath, but I’ve not been able to get out to more than one or two local hotspots over the course of the year. Far more often, the birds are just outside my office window as I continue working.

I do see birds on daily neighborhood walks that have become longer through the year; in January, I couldn’t manage even one jaunt around the block but now I can nearly go on all the longer walks I enjoy. This brings me to great suburban species, including the white-winged doves, white ibises, northern mockingbirds, common grackles, blue jays, gray catbirds, and occasional pileated woodpeckers.

I never made it to any further afield birding hotspots, even locally, except one just a few days ago. Because Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge has an outstanding driving loop, I was able to see an abundance of waterfowl (the ruddy duck was a surprise), wading birds, osprey, and one perky belted kingfisher.

Still, just one trip is paltry and hardly noteworthy. Rather than a start to the new year, it’s a finish to the old and hopefully will be a spot I’m able to revisit more than once in 2026.

Making 2026 More About the Birds

While 2025 has not been the year I envisioned, it has still been a year of learning. Learning what I can do, what I can’t, what I can recover, what I can’t. I plan on taking those lessons into 2026 and pushing the boundaries to do even more.

This will involve all the typical resolutions: work harder, improve habits, lose weight, etc. More importantly, and for reasons I can’t quite completely disclose yet, it will also involve more birds.

With some appliance changes, I will have better organization for birdseed, which hopefully will help me to keep the feeders full on more of a regular basis. In doing that, I will also be encouraged to refill and clean the bird bath more often.

Necessity will cause more travel, which will include birding hotspots, some of which are world-famous yet I’ve never been (even in my own regional backyard). This is certainly going to change, as I learn to spread my wings a bit more.

Ultimately, spreading my wings is what I want to do most. I spent much of 2025 afraid as new side effects appeared and had to be dealt with, every day was a new challenge of how to manage, work was always over-demanding, and a lot of “me” fell by the wayside. Now, it’s time to take flight again, to regain what I can of what I’ve lost and soar beyond new horizons.

Let’s fly.