Well, that went quickly didn’t it? I said something similar in the equivalent post last year but, really, 2025 has absolutely shot past and I’m not sure how we’ve got to the end of the year so quickly – surely it should be only September?

2025 was in some ways a routine one, having been settled into rural Northamptonshire for a fifth year. We have now familiar places to visit for wildlife and walks, as well as regular cycles into the countryside. We also have a pattern of more distant trips and holidays that is becoming more standard between the years, with destinations both familiar and new.

The year started in a new location in Devon, close to Hartland Point, where 2026 is now planned to finish. The wild rugged north-west Devon coast is a stunning location for any time but a stormy opening of the year was pretty wild and set a tone for some extreme weather during 2025.

We had to wait into March for our first short trip away, with another coastal stay, this time in Suffolk at Orford. I had just finished reading a book, ‘Where are the fellows who cut the hay?’ by Robert Ashton, which is set in the rural area behind the coast and is well worth some time if you want to reflect on the changes to rural communities over the last 100 years. We really liked that part of the country and plan to go back, including more visits to the nature reserves including Minsmere.

We also had a spring long weekend in Ludlow, enjoying walks from the town and down into Herefordshire and mid-Wales. Another lovely rural location with great wildlife, historic towns and villages and pleasant scenery. So nice in fact, that we may one day end up living there, if or when we choose to move on from Northamptonshire.

Out biggest trip of the year came in June with a two week holiday in Shetland. I’m still writing up blog posts for the trip but it deserves that time. I honestly think it was the best trip I’ve ever had in the UK and I’d love to spend more time there. The wildlife was spectacular, the landscapes both similar and very different to other Scottish islands, and the history was fascinating. Islands really are my ‘thing’ and Shetland is top of my list of those in the UK.

For a second year running I wasn’t able to volunteer in RSPB Ramsey Island; this time due to issues with the mainland jetty to get volunteers and visitors across. Due to the lack of clarity on whether things will be back to normal soon, I also won’t be going to a stay jn 2026. Instead, I did two days volunteering with the local BCN Wildlife Trust. I did one day cutting willow in a wetland and a second day gathering hay at the Trust’s new Strawbery Hill reserve. This built on my two visits to the site in the spring the second of which produced perhaps the loudest dawn chorus I’ve ever heard in the UK.

The last bigger trip of the year was our usual annual visit to central Sweden and we loved seeing the autumn colours coming out in October and gathering wild produce. We liked it so much that we’re heading there again in later October to hopefully see autumn in full swing.

Our year ended in on the west Somerset coast, which was a bit of a surprise as we thought we were staying in north east Devon. However, we enjoyed it nonetheless.

A bright, sunny but chilly few days brought to a close a year that delivered heat and drought for the spring and summer with heavy rains both in the early months and throughout autumn. It has been a year of whether extremes which we may need to become used to.

Without a big trip to far off lands in 2025, my wildlife watching was much more modest in scale. I saw 161 species of bird, not bad for me, with ruddy shelduck and Sabine’s gull the only new additions to my life list, which took me little further to my current 1,000 target. My mammal watching was particularly limited with only 21 seen, however, the warm and dry weather was great for butterflies. My recording of my butterfly sightings was probably patchy so I’m not confident how many species I saw but I suspect it was over the previous record of 14.

So I’ll end this post with some images of the year…