2023 in review: counting birds, blessings and friends

As 2023 fades into history, I am reflecting on what this odd, odd-numbered year has meant to me. Most of all, I am grateful for the friends I’ve encountered in my birding excursions.

They include my steady friends, Jim and Andy, regulars at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm, who share their joy in spotting birds and getting their photographs, overcoming the vagaries of weather and sunlight winter, spring, summer and fall. Andy supplied the photo topping the post, a Northern harrier sweeping across the trail as I, slightly blurry at back left, trudge along with my cane.

The pseudononymous Old Sam Peabody and Blonde-Crested Warbler are always a pleasure to see, no matter where we happen to converge.

Other friends include the Mikes (two with dogs) and Ginger and Nancy, whom I see periodically and with whom we trade hopeful notes on where to spot this or that species that catches our fancy.

And they include Jeanne and her friend whose name I did not get, visitors from Long Island stopping by the Pole Farm today in hopes of spotting the elusive owls that pay us a call seasonally, although not daily, at least not every time we’re we’re stalking the trails.

They include new friends, like Julia, a visitor from Canada, an “accidental” birder whose visit was a highlight of my year. I’ve made new online friends, too, via WordPress and social media, whom I hope to meet in real life in due time.

I cannot omit the Lauras, one Princeton University colleague who is my best birding buddy and another Laura, also a Princeton colleague, with whom I’ve walked a few trails this year. Nor can I leave out faithful email correspondent Sheila, whose missives never leave me short on joy.

Due to an illness that grounded me for more than two months, my yearly totals of species spotted did not quite match that of 2022. But I still had an enriching year, part of it spent in the easy chair at home, looking out the back windows at our feeders.

Despite the setbacks, I added 14 birds to my life list, many of them from highly satisfying chases with Laura as we tracked down a rare Harris’s sparrow and a not-so-rare but nemesis cackling goose.

To my friends, old and new, I thank you for making my birding adventures so pleasurable, and I wish you all the best, in birding and in life, in the coming year.