In 2025, birding for me was not only about finding birds, but about contributing to a global effort where every checklist has value. Each observation I shared on eBird became part of a much larger picture, supporting science, conservation, and the tools birders around the world rely on, including Merlin Bird ID, Birds of the World, and the wider work of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and its partners.
This article is a personal recap of a year spent in the field: the numbers behind the binoculars, the places explored, the birds recorded, and the community that made the experience richer and more meaningful.
2025: A year in numbers
Throughout 2025, I submitted 264 checklists, including 257 complete checklists, documenting 173 species and adding 21 life birds. In total, 42,521 individual birds were counted, each record contributing to a growing body of data used by researchers and conservation practitioners worldwide.
Birding was a constant presence across the year. I shared checklists on 191 different days and spent a total of 394.6 hours actively eBirding. My longest uninterrupted streak lasted 11 days, from 19 to 29 December 2025, a period that captured the intensity and rewards of winter birding in southern Egypt.
Peak days and field highlights
Some days stood out for their productivity and diversity. The biggest day by number of checklists was 24 May 2025, reflecting extensive field coverage and sustained effort. The biggest day by species was 19 January 2025, highlighting how productive well-timed winter surveys can be.
Among all species recorded, the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) dominated the statistics. I counted 8,663 individuals across the year and recorded the species on 246 separate checklists, a reminder that even the most familiar birds play an important role in long-term monitoring.
Media and documentation
Documenting birds beyond the checklist was an essential part of my 2025 eBird activity. Over the year, I contributed 481 photographs covering 114 species, along with 26 sound recordings of 20 species. Media were attached to 78 different checklists, and all of these records now support identification resources and long-term reference material through the Macaulay Library.
Places, distance, and coverage
Birding in 2025 involved extensive movement and repeated site coverage. I traveled 1,555.5 km while eBirding and recorded birds in 103 different locations. The most frequently visited site, recorded as UTM 36R 493000 2665000, alone accounted for 33 checklists, demonstrating the value of consistent monitoring at key localities.
Community and data quality
Birding is rarely a solitary activity, even when one is alone in the field. During 2025, I shared 132 checklists, most often with Aswan Birdwatching, my closest birding partner of the year, with 74 shared checklists.
Data quality remained a priority. A total of 108 checklists followed eBird Status and Trends best practices, ensuring they could be used in large-scale analyses. These efforts placed me within the top 4.678 percent of checklist contributors worldwide, the top 1.983 percent of media contributors, the top 14.862 percent of species observers, and the top 2.583 percent of eBirders based on time spent eBirding.
My year within a global effort
In a global context, 2025 was another exceptional year for eBird. I was one of 427.8 thousand eBirders who collectively spent 2,090.3 years birding during the year. Worldwide, 22.9 million checklists containing 300.5 million observations were submitted across 251 countries. Since its inception, eBird has now surpassed 1.8 billion checklists and 24.25 billion observations.
Media contributions also continued to grow rapidly. In 2025 alone, birders added more than 16.4 million photographs and 625.5 thousand sound recordings, helping expand the Macaulay Library to over 84.9 million images and more than 3.2 million audio recordings. My own contributions form a small but meaningful part of this global archive.
