The bird year 2025

Pleas note:

English is not my native language and I am no expert on bird species, thus mistakes may occour. If you see that I have identified a bird wrongly I will be very thankful to know about it.

Many years ago I saw an american movie called The big year, it was a movie where the three lead characters, played by Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black, competed in a contest to see, or hear, most different spicies of birds within a calendar year. The movie really spoke to me, not because it was especially well made, it actualy looked like kind of a low budget movie, but I really liked the idea of travelling the country to see, or in my case to photograph as many bird species as possible.

Navigation

January special - the mute swan

In 1984 the mute swan was selected to be the Danish National bird by national danish television, allthough I do not agree in the way this was done, as the viewers only had 5 species to choose between, the mute swan off course being one of them, the others were Raven, European starling, Northern lapwing and Euroasian skylark ( the former danish national bird ). Species like Common blackbird, House sparrow, Golden eagle or ,my personal favorite, the great spotted woodpecker, which I think are at least as qualified for the title as the five other species, were not even in the contest.

Nonetheless nobody can argue that, despite the mute swan being a bit clumsy, noisy and having the temper of a mad cat, the mute swan is a large, majestic and beautiful bird and it is propably the easiest bird in Denmark to photograph.

_project_thebirdyear2025_januaryspecial_ (11)

_project_thebirdyear2025_januaryspecial_ (9)

_project_thebirdyear2025_januaryspecial_ (10)

_project_thebirdyear2025_januaryspecial_ (6)

_project_thebirdyear2025_januaryspecial_ (7)

_project_thebirdyear2025_januaryspecial_ (4)

_project_thebirdyear2025_januaryspecial_ (1)

_project_thebirdyear2025_januaryspecial_ (2)

_project_thebirdyear2025_januaryspecial_ (3)

January.

As the clock stroke twelve on new years eve and 2024 became 2025 I started my big year, or as I decided to call it, The bird year 2025, to avoid any confusion as I am not competing in the real big year challenge, I am only competing against myself and the true purpose for me is to learn more about birds.

I decided to focus mostly on the birds that live near the freshwater lakes in my home area, central Jutland, Denmark.

I spend countless hours at the banks of several lakes and I quickly realized that getting close enough to the birds was not as easy as I had thought.

Though I saw about 50 different species throughout the month, I only managed to get a photo of 20 different species.

Ducks and swans were plentiful, and so were tits, robins and finches, I even got a great surprise, the white tailed eagle, which is a bird that is not so common in my area.