The Year in Flight

My 2018 Highlights – from Costa Rica to Maine

December 25, 2018 | by Bryan Pfeiffer | 18 comments |

In the pantheon of flying things this year, that Green Kingfisher above was good. So was the Bramble Hairstreak below. Even the the waters of Lake Superior lapping at their pastel pebbles — yeah, that was also good (and not even a flying thing).

Bramble Hairstreak (Callophrys dumetorum)

In the year after I nearly died, I still managed to chase nature in the rainforests of Costa Rica and the deserts of California, among big trees in Oregon and on bogs in Minnesota, at mountain summits and in my own backyard here in Vermont.

So if I were now to profess difficulty in choosing highlights from 2018, that would amount to little more than the whinings of a privileged white guy who knows damn well how lucky he is to be alive and rambling in nature.

Even so, two animals did evoke particular joy for me in 2018. Just ask the people with me during those encounters — they would tell you, “Yeah, Bryan really lost it.” So, if anything can beat that Green Kingfisher above, it’s this American Pygmy-Kingfisher pictured below on the right — a five-inch-long bird that gave me a mile of happiness in 2018. Yeah, I lost it.

Same goes for the Sara Orangetip (pictured on the left). Yes, you’ll find plenty of butterflies flashier than orangetips. (Metalmarks, for example.) But no self-respecting lepidopterist can resist orangetips. They’re free spirits, prancing through the world, stopping on whims to take nectar with no regard for the likes of you. Butterflies were big for me in 2018, including some wonderful employment with the gossamer insects in Maine, but none bigger than Sara Orangetip. Yeah, I lost it.

Below the kingfisher and the orangetip, you’ll find two lists of essays and blog posts from 2018: five “highlights” and five “duds.” Finally, below the lists, are the rest of my 2018 images. I suggest you go to full screen on your browser, click any image, then start the slide show for an entire year in flight displayed for you in about 60 seconds.

Happy 2019!

Sara Orangetip (Anthocharis sara) nectaring on Desert Lavender (Hyptis emoryi) in California's Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

American Pygmy-Kingfisher in Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica

Highlights

The Extinction of Meaning, my essay about our fraught relationship with the endangered and the common, drew a lot of praise this year. So much so that you can have it read aloud to you on Medium.
Mortality seems to be a worthy topic in this popular post called The Death of a Hummingbird.
My lone journey into fiction writing, titled The Breakup, first published in 2014, for some reason was resurrected to land among my most popular posts in 2018.
Bending our notions of time, My Extra Hour in Nature, about making good use of the hour we gain every fall, drew the most comments of any post this year.
Finally, this Tribute to the Field Guide, my most strident post of the year, should be a living “document” for years to come.

Duds

When a Bluet Isn’t Blue, which features some lovely damselflies, didn’t attract much attention.
The Giant Butterflies in Montpelier includes a montage that features every butterfly family on the planet (okay, there are only six families — but I got ’em all covered).
In a letter to the editor, I take on the Washington Post for its fake news about dragonflies. Another dud among my readers. So much for my clout in the halls of power.
My rare agreement with Donald Trump, an essay I published last year called Don’t Drain the Swamp, still hasn’t attracted much attention. SAD!
And, hey, we’ve had Eastern Bluebirds here Montpelier since mid December, but relative few of you have seen the photos.