Six birds of 2025

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One of the challenges (opportunities?) for this here newsletter is finding images that I have permission to use. I strive to feature photos I’ve taken rather than using stock photos (the horror!). So in looking back at 2025 birds, I thought I’d feature ones where I took my own photo. Usually where there is a photo, there may be an interesting little back story also.

Mourning Dove

For whatever reason, juvenile Mourning Doves have taken to our mostly nondescript urban backyard. Two years ago I got decent footage of an adult Mourning Dove feeding two little ones crop milk. This summer, a pair of juveniles hung around the garden while an adult stayed nearby.

Great Blue Heron

Back in early April, before the trees had leafed out, Great Blue Herons were still arranging their nests and preparing for breeding season. Young herons hatched by the end of May and had left the nest by mid-June. I shared this story in last week’s video.

Clay-colored Sparrow

Sparrows don’t do much for most people, but for some of us they are exciting. Clays are plain birds in a family of plain birds. Observed on June 22, this was the latest spring sighting for Clay-colored Sparrow in Cook County, Illinois, in 2025. Please clap.

Least Grebe

For this one, I had to get to grebe-level for a decent photo. That meant floating a kayak onto a particularly weedy brackish pond. These appear to be immature Least Grebes, but I can’t say much more about their age: Least Grebes breed in the tropics year-round and immatures are likely always a possibility.

Northern Cardinal

Way back in February, I was experimenting with a solar-powered wifi-enabled bird feeder. This photo would suggest that cardinals very well may be the inspiration for Angry Birds.

Brown Thrasher

This photo won’t win any awards, and I’m perfectly fine with that. This was a first for my local patch; thrashers are just hard to find around my neighborhood. It was a foggy day, and I heard the bird’s bizarre repertoire of songs.

Happy New Year! Thanks for reading This Week in Birding in 2025.