Last year I had great difficulty editing my choices down to a reasonable number. I was more successful this year, but the number is still high at 30.
These are not necessarily the best photos I took in 2025, but are a collection of ones that caught my eye more than others. (They may not have appeared during the year's Eye Catching postings)
Top 10 Bird Eye Catchers
Cardinals are a standout at anytime, but a bright red one against the white snow really catches your eye. Wood ducks usually leave before the snow in the fall and return when the small lakes are free of ice in the spring. A pair of wood ducks arrived early and really stood out amongst all the mallards.
Kingfishers are hard enough to photograph, let alone have one land in front of you with a fish. The yellow-rumped warblers and the redstart are two of the little flitty guys that nvere stop long enough to get a photo, this time both stopped long enough to catch my eye and get a decent shot
In the spring of 2024 I had a male red-wing blackbird that seemed to be looking for me to provide a hand-out. I didn't have with me, so no go. But it sure seemed like he would come to hand. This year we had a male (same one?) come to hand and two juveniles as well. They certainly caught our eyes
Don't often see a gosling not long out of its egg....
Juvenile mergansers, juvenile cooper's hawk at eye level about 25 feet away and a barred owl that was about the same distance away until it moved slightly higher into a pine tree
Top Nine Non-bird Animals Eye Catchers
A very thin looking chipmunk out in the snow in January - a very sorry looking eye catcher
Left: What happens to a Texas longhorn cattle's horn when it gets frostbitten. Right: A 1-2 hour old calf being attended to by mum
A grey squirrel, having finished a hand out, ran up the tree, planted his hind legs, stretched out and then planted his front feet - and stayed there sunbathing
We caught some movement in the water off to the side - two massive snapping turtles tussling. They were still at it an hour later (A prelude to mating)
Snakes seemed relatively plentiful. A blue-eyed gatersnake. Their eyes go like this for a week or so before shedding their skin. A pair of watersnakes entertained us for about 30 minutes
What we thought was fungus turned out to be a giant swallowtail butterfly caterpillar. We found 4 others. After we notified them, staff at Fletcher Wildlife Gardens found even more and brought them inside for the winter
A camel about to put its head in the car hoping for some food, a giraffe wraps its long tongue around a celery stick
Top Eight Plant Eye Catchers
Left: one of the tulips beds at Dows Lake had a number of tulips taking a circuitous route to being upright. Right: A grass pink orchid certainly caught the eye at Gary Fen in Alexandria
Indian pipes always catch my eye. Queen Anne's Lace often have a purple dot in the middle of the bloom, this one's purple dot deemed to be accentuating itself above the main blossom.
A swamp milkweed's pod's difference caught my eye as did this beautiful bunch of jack-in-the-pulpit seed pods (Each "pea/bean" while have a number of seeds in it)
Golden Pholiota mushrooms on a fallen tree trunk (One of several such groups)
Frost spikes on raspberry leaves
Top Two Miscellaneous Eye Catchers
Boat houses on the St Lawrence at South Lancaster
The "Sentinels" at a massive Bouncy Castle event.