I’ve been feeling pretty tired of birding over the past couple of months. This year I took several big trips, including a month in the United Kingdom and a fortnight each in the Northern Territory and the Mallee. I went on week-long drives around Bendigo and into the Riverina, Loddon-Hume, Warby-Ovens and Campaspe regions. I was part of dozens of surveying events and led groups around my local area.

It was a great year and I enjoyed all of it, but it has had an impact. My motivation has flagged recently. I’m struggling to get out on my own, I’m declining more invitations, and when I go I’m not taking my camera with me, I’m not processing photos, and I’m not writing trip reports. Most of my birding during December was from my balcony.

I want to slow down in 2026 and get back to what I like most about birdwatching: watching birds.

Doves rock

My plan for the next little while is to focus my birding on columbidae – pigeons and doves.

I really love pigeons. I think that they’re handsome, with a sweet disposition and gentle, calming calls. I like that they can fit into almost any habitat, from urban environments to rainforest to deserts.

They’re a great subject for photography too. There’s a lot of variety within that familiar, stocky form. Though they can seem drab at first glance, a lot of pigeons have subtle colouration that is best shot at certain light angles – I’m thinking the metallic green-purple neck of a rock pigeon, or the panels on a bronzewing.

Their movements are often predictable, especially the ground-feeding birds. They’re cautious and will flush, but will also often return to the same places to feed and water once the threat has gone. I need to spend more time learning how to anticipate birds’ movement, and pigeons are a great option for that.

Some of them, particularly spotted doves, rock and crested pigeons in urban areas, will be incredibly approachable and easy to shoot. These I’m hoping will give me a lot of opportunity to not only practice my bird photography on a reliable subject, but also to play around with composition. In particular, I want to learn how to take action and habitat shots that give greater emphasis to the environment and the circumstances of the bird, rather than the classic close-up, clean-background of most of my photos to date.

An attempt at a ‘habitat’ shot in London that didn’t quite work out, but did get me some bemused looks from other tourists.

It’s also an opportunity to develop some video and audio recording skills on a reasonably stable subject. Maybe even field sketches – I don’t do enough drawing.

Other species that are less acclimated to humans – here in Victoria that’s probably peaceful doves and brush bronzewings – will be tougher. I expect that the hardest will be the fruit-doves: unaccommodating, canopy-feeding forest birds that will give me few opportunities. If I only see one new bird this year I’ll be very happy if it’s a wompoo fruit-dove; but getting a good photo of one as would be a miracle.

I want to learn through conscious observation, but also by reading. In my day job I’m a researcher (though definitely not an ornithologist), but I’ve tended to avoid taking an academic approach to birds. It’s usually better as a hobby away from the computer. Still, there’s an opportunity to dip my beak in and see what I can learn in a much more targeted way.

Not a big year

I had conversations with a few friends about potentially making this a dove-specific big year, with the idea being to see all of Australia’s resident columbidae within 12 months. As I started to map different species out, it looked like it was going to take me all over Australia (or at least spend half the year in Queensland), and I lost interest. It’s obviously still much more contained than an actual big year, but those aren’t appealing to me either.

Just adding nine of the species that I don’t have good photos of and it already started to look overwhelming. There are some clear hotspots, but it’s probably too much, and setting myself a goal that is unlikely to be achievable with the time, money and motivation that I have available.

A big year is also at odds with the goal that I’m setting for myself, which is to spend more time with a few species, learn more about them and their habitats, improve my observation and photographic skills, and reframe birding as a leisurely experience again.

Being more deliberate in my travel will help with that. We don’t get wompoos in Victoria, so if I do make one longer trip in 2026, it’ll probably be a week or two in coastal Queensland. I’m starting the year with a few nights in East Gippsland in January, where I’ll get to spend some time with wonga, white-headed, and maybe even topknot pigeons.

There’s also a chance for me to return to Kakadu and spend more time with chestnut-quilled rock-pigeons. The best moment of my whole year was realising that if I approached them quietly, a pair of these birds at Ubirr were happy to hang around. For half an hour I sat down in the dirt and watched them waddle around on the sandstone, in and out of crevices, and then pause to watch me back. They foraged, occasionally wandered off, disappeared behind a rock and then would pop out from somewhere else and come back over.

That’s the kind of very peaceful birding that I enjoy the most, and what I want more of.