Looking Back at 2024
Indian Peafowl - Croatia - May 2024
2020 through 2023 were challenging years for me for a number of reasons. Of course, there was the pandemic which disrupted all of our lives. More personally, I helped my parents downsize and move which was a massive and difficult job. My dad developed cancer in 2022, then passed away in 2023. I then helped my mom move again. Physically, I tore my right meniscus, developed a large blood clot in my left leg, and broke my left tibia and fibula. Collectively, these limited my traveling, bicycling, and spending time in nature all of which provide me joy and sustain me mentally and physically.
Overall, 2024 was a much better year for me. Here are some of the goals I set for myself in January that I actually achieved:
Birding - over 250 species this year and over 500 lifetime species
Biking - at least 4 trips
Traveling - take a trip most months
Blogging - set up blog covering birding, biking and travel, and publish at least 4 posts each month
As 2024 wraps up, I can look back on my expanded blog and website with pleasure. The entries bring me joy to read and help me remember details and feelings from this year’s adventures. My bird count for the year is 290 species and my lifetime total is up to 558. I went on 6 cycling trips. I traveled with Kate to St. Vincent and Iceland, and with the whole family to Denmark and Croatia. The only months where I did not have some sort of meaningful travel were March, July, and December. This will be my 56th blog post of the year.
My birding got off to a quick start when Kate and traveled in January to Saint Vincent with Kate’s cousin Katherine, husband Lee, and Katherine’s family. I saw 30 species of birds with 13 new species on that trip. At that point, my new blog and website were only ideas in my mind, so the only post from that trip was this one of The Little Blue Heron and the Big Brown Pelican I posted in October.
In the end of February, I traveled to Florida for four days of bird photography. I wrote 5 blog posts from that trip as well as created a photo gallery with 90 of my favorite shots (from over 15,000 photos taken on the trip). By the end of that trip, I had added 33 new birds to my world life list and was already at 109 species for the year.
Traveling to distant locations is the easiest way to see new bird species. With international trips to Croatia, Denmark and Iceland as well as cycling trips to Oregon, Idaho, and South Dakota (where I brought my good camera and found some time for birding along the way), I ended up with my largest annual species count - 290. Of those, 103 were new species bringing my life list to 558. While I have a long way to go on my bird identification skills, I am improving. I still rely heavily on Cornell’s Merlin app and a variety of other internet sources, but I am no longer the complete newbie I was back in 2020 when I could only identify perhaps 30-40 of the most common birds.
In 2024, I ultimately had 6 major bike trips along with another 4 one or two day trips resulting in 30 travel days on the bike. My major trips were in the NY Finger Lakes region, a tour from Oregon to Idaho, the Black Hills in South Dakota, around the Lancaster region of Pennsylvania, central New Hampshire, and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I posted about all of them except for the NY Finger Lakes. I had a wonderful time on these trips; however, my training between trips was not great. One of my physical goals for the year was to cycle over 6000 miles, but I will end the year with only about 4700 miles. I had also hoped to start strength and flexibility training and to lose some of the weight I have put on over the past 5 years. Sadly, I completely failed at those goals. I intend to put more focus on investing in my physical well being next year, so hopefully by the end of next year, these goals will be ones that I will have made significant progress on achieving.
Overall, I am happy as I look back on 2024, and excited as I look forward to 2025.
Happy New Year everyone and best wishes for 2025.