I feel kind of guilty because six months ago I started this year’s running gag about how birds have nothing to worry about and now there’s bird flu in Australia and they do.

I didn’t think this would stop me taking some photos of birds for my second sequel to Birds of the Equinox. On Sunday I saw four New Holland Honeyeaters perfectly framed in the curve of a branch as the early morning sun slanted in from the side and illuminated a backdrop of flowers. I’ve also spotted white-faced heron and egrets poking around the shores of the lake in the past week, neither of them featuring in the bird jokes so far this year. And on the weekend I watched a rare hooded plover zipping around the wet sand at sunset, weaving between gulls on one of the first shoeless sand strolls of the new summer.

However, when I set off with my camera around 7:30am, I started to get a bad feeling. The bustle of lorikeets and noisy miners I’m used to seeing were not prevalent. When I reached the lake there wasn’t a single bird in sight. No pelicans or cormorants hanging out with the fishermen. No gulls or ducks on the grass.

I kept on walking towards the dunes and the beach, hoping I’d get another glimpse of the hooded plover or by that point even a seagull. I saw a single gull out in the distance. Not much else. The sky was empty.

I continued walking along the sand, pondering as I strolled if I should change my entry’s theme to Beach Dogs of the Equinox instead. The distant seagull swept past and I desperately tried to capture it.

My lack of face mask made him flee quite quickly.

I decided to get a coffee, and while I waited I theorised ways I could take photos with one hand while holding the coffee cup with the other.

Holding the coffee seemed to be the way to bring the birds out from hiding - and I recalled that both the autumn equinox and the winter solstice were both weekend days, whereas today was a work day, so maybe this made sense.

This Singing Honeyeater was having a WFH day so wasn’t up at dawn like usual.

The longer I held my coffee the more that birds appeared. While I was still a bit shocked by the lack of birdlife, at least I saw a few varieties of feathered friends, and doing it with nice music and morning caffeine made it a positive experience.

This Eastern Rosella was panic buying flower bits in case there’s another lockdown.

The Murray Magpie was socially distancing its head from its own body.

This New Holland Honeyeater was not looking forward to being stuck at home watching Netflix for the next three months.

This Starling is checking to see how long the line up is for the PCR test at the local Bird Flu testing site.

This Noisy Miner is wisely eating the seeds from this Banksia flower and not a Pangolin from a wet market.

This cute couple of spotted doves were walking down the same path to the beach that Vanessa and I will take on the upcoming warm evenings this summer!

The sun set after 6pm today. That’s the milestone that usually signals the end of winter for me, or at least the point where I can slow to a jog in my attempts to escape it.

This year’s winter has not had the same effect on me. I’m not entirely sure why, but probably because it just hasn’t been that cold. I didn’t double-jacket/double-pants for a single walk. I didn’t dig out my heavy duty beanie nor my heated gloves. In fact I lost my regular gloves late July and never replaced them. I even slept without socks most nights and I didn’t use my sleeping glove either (right hand for some reason gets a lot colder than my left).

What the heck happened? Is the secret to being warmer in winter simply to just be wealthy enough to have a well insulated house and run the heater without caring about costs (definitely helps)? Is the mattress I bought in January simply warmer than the old one (almost certainly). Is having a fulfilling job, regular catch ups with friends, fun side projects, and a loving family the real secret to feeling warmth in my fingers and toes (Well…) Did I have 9% more fat/muscle on my body compared to last winter? Were the average minimum and maximum temperatures higher in 2026 compared to every other month? (100%)

It’s a mystery. Winter happened, it rained a lot, but it didn’t change me as a person. Scheduling a tropical holiday for the end of July was a super smart move. Even though I got back on August 2nd it has felt like Spring since then. Travelling to Melbourne and Sydney during the subsequent weeks definitely helped the vibes.

I built my own step tracking app, competed in many pub quizzes, and made numerous pumpkin soups. I picked non-rainy mornings for the occasional office commute challenge. I delivered a successful AI governance pilot. I solved a lot of crosswords. I rearranged the microwave and coffee machine in the kitchen. The Knicks won the NBA Championship - and this led to me wearing my Knicks beanie a lot. It had spent many years on my desk as a wrist rest, and because I didn't replace it and kept using my mouse, now I don’t need a wrist rest any more! Thanks, Jalen Brunson.

I listened to ~73 songs per day in winter 2026. In fact, it’s actually a lot higher than that because Spotify scrobbling broke for 15 days in July. I listened to a lot of new albums. This playlist starts with a song I listened to while walking on the sand with a coffee on a grey morning, caffeine being a common trigger for me enjoying a song more than I did on previous listens. A lot of these songs I listened to while in the gym, or while making soup, or walking in the cold.

If that was truly winter, I feel like this summer is going to be a little toasty.

While discussing options for a winter getaway, we considered a lot of options. Headway was made into plans for both Vanuatu and Magnetic Island. In the end we picked Hamilton Island and this turned out to be a fortuitous decision.

Other than being not cold, the priorities we had for a holiday destination were: Peace and Quiet. Pools to chill by. Spending as little of our time off travelling as possible.

So one of the best parts of Hamilton Island is that there is an airport right on the island. It took longer to get from home to the plane in Adelaide than it did to get from the plane to the bungalow.

The airport is on the back side of a big hill, so it does not interfere with the natural enjoyment of the island once you’ve landed there.

The fact that the island is so small made the whole stay incredibly easy. We were able to walk to everything each day. There are a lot of tourists and other people zipping about in the numerous golf carts, but these are unnecessary. We even walked to the top of One Tree Hill for the sunset.

The hotel/pools/resort are in the sandy cove. Over a small hill there is the marina/ferry terminal and the shops, bakery, pub and yacht club. Behind/past the resort there is beach and walking trails into the bush and up the hills, leading to secluded coves, shady creeks, cool cliffs and a few lookouts.

Everything from breakfast, coffee, pool, shops, mini golf, table tennis, beer and dinner could be reached by foot.

The hiking trails were great. The network crosses and loops around two heads, with plenty of variety and reward in the trails. We had breakfast at various locations on the island the last three days and it was all peak hiking breakfast experience.

The sunrises and sunsets were also fantastic.

And going in July, after the school holidays, was perfect timing. The pools were close to empty. The water was about 20 degrees. Drinking a coffee by the water and then having a swim was a daily activity.

By the end of the second day I had a thong blister.

Did I have to pay $40 for a bad steak sandwich and a beer? Yes. But groceries from the supermarket and coffee were pretty reasonably priced. The resort itself provided free table tennis, shuttle buses, gym and housekeeping.

It was a very nice place. And I didn’t even go snorkelling or see the crocodile.

Three weeks of winter have passed so far and it hasn't been that cold yet. Either that or I need to dust my computer monitor. This morning was the first really chilly morning, with fog hanging above the surface of the grass as we walked Nash to the bakery for her weekly treat.

The cold morning was brought by completely clear skies, and even though it was the shortest day of the year there was no shortage of sunshine. I took another walk with my camera to check on the birds and find out what they thought about the solstice.

These silver gulls on the sand were loving the water, and not at all concerned about the data centres it might be able to cool.

Then I saw this cormorant diving for dinner, showing no signs it had bothered calculating how many days of stockpiled oil reserves are remaining.

On the island I saw this galah soaking up the late afternoon sun. If it knew about screwworm flies it would consider them a snack, and not a potential future in which beef shortages lead to Australia exporting galahs as meat to the USA.

This dusky moorhen in a shady pond has not considered the loss of French culture as amateur musicians in France lean more and more towards English lyrics during the annual Fête de la Musique.

This rainbow lorikeet was extremely stressed out about the state of everything.

After four mornings of not getting out of bed in time to appreciate the sunrise, I forced myself to get out of bed to see the sunrise. The kids had escorted me to multiple viewpoints in the scrub behind the house that looked over the hills and I'd seen them at sunset but not dawn.

It was also a chance to get some steps in, and listen to some music, both foundational experiences having been rare so far on the trip.

I prepared all my cold stuff before bed so I could be out the door quickly and to reduce the steps required on the noisy floor. Puffy jacket, gloves, beanie, thermal.

Out the front door there were a lot of deer just up the road. It was light but no direct sun. I put on some tunes with my headphones over my beanie. I can't remember exactly what.

The deer ran ahead of me as I stepped carefully down the slope of the empty property and into the wild beyond. I followed the trail to the hunting blind, and then up onto the sloping grass that overlooks timbertop, an old farmer's outbuilding, and the fog trimmed forest.

The sun was behind me and behind the mountain ranges. I set up my tripod and tried to find a good angle. It wasn't particularly scenic, but the deer and kangaroos dotted the hill in the foreground which was nice.

At one point I adjusted my headphones, breaking the noise cancelling seal, and my ears were instantly filled with the sound of bird calls and the rustle of grass in the wind. I chided myself for listening to music when I could have been immersing myself in nature.

Then I heard the boom of a big rifle, and every bird, deer and roo immediately legged it.

Unperturbed, I started walking up the hill, hoping for a different angle, and there were two more loud booms from over the rise. I don't think there was much chance anyone was going to aim a firearm at me, but there's been news from Victoria in recent months that made me think maybe I would take a photo back from the roads.

Ironically, this was probably a nicer angle.

Several hours of driving and a massive sticky-date muffin later I was back on a plane flying towards Adelaide. The sunrise was well behind me now and home's rainy weather was coming into and over the front of the aircraft. It was a little choppy. Right before we descended the pilot announced South Australia's strict quarantine laws and I recalled I had two apples in my bag that I'd delayed eating after aforementioned muffin. So I commenced eating two apples rapidly, as the plane descended through rocky turbulence towards ground. Chewing the fruit made my ears hurt. This, I thought, was the revenge of Newton's apple.

In the mornings leading up to this weekend's autumn equinox I have noticed that around 7:30am has been good for seeing birds. In its favour, the sunrise happens around breakfast time so you can eat before going for a walk. And the light is nice, not too blue like winter. And it's not so cold that you can't feel your fingers when you use a camera. There's even plenty of greenery and flowers for the sapsuckers to consume making the birds more plentiful and not huddled away conserving their energy.

I used my Sunday morning to do a birding tour around my neighbourhood, which is actually arranged quite well. If I do a loop I pass through sections of suburbia, river, beach dunes, and lake. So there's a nice variety of different birds at each stage to keep things interesting.

Here's some birds from the 2026 Equinox:

First, a New Holland Honeyeater who does not care at all about the current price of petrol.

Then I saw this rarity, a Royal Spoonbill! It was eating straight from the water, not a thought given for all those microplastics it was ingesting.

It took a while for this Musk Lorikeet to show its face in the canopy. The pollen in that flower was too tempting. It was not concerned at all about ballistic missiles that might appear in the sky like twinkling stars and then all of a sudden get really bright.

Cousins, the Rainbow Lorikeets, were the most common of birds this morning. They squawked everywhere as they flocked from tree to tree, oblivious to the threat of AI that would soon replace them.

This Singing Honeyeater was moving south to north with me along the edge of the dunes by the beach. It did not have to worry about how the supermarkets have all stopped selling the good types of yogurt recently, or how they don't look like they're coming back.

The Pelican-ball at the lake was deeply troubled about a lot of things...

That was a very long spring. Perhaps it’s because this week’s weather - cool, wet and windy, a lot of showers about, bouts of pleasant sunshine - mapped closely to the first week of September’s weather. And in fact nearly every week of the past three months has been cool, wet and windy with lots of showers, and bouts of pleasant sunshine. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a spring with quite so much consistency. I put my jacket away and then got it back out again multiple times. Yet there is no doubt that the sun sets after 8pm now and there was even a test match - briefly- last weekend, so spring did happen.

But what did happen in spring? A lot and not much. Personally that is. Globally and domestically there was a lot going on, but for me the last few months have been one of pleasant routine, general health (ignoring the cold from the end of October that I nearly had to write a memoir about surviving) and mundanity.

I had the same customer all season, the same personal project for the evenings, the same gym routines, a lot of chicken breast salads. A lot of berries, cereal and yogurt. A lot of walking around the same lake, canal and seaside. Some good audio books. Pub Quiz. Walks with Vanessa and Nash - often to the bakery. Lots of good music.

I did go to Sydney. And for some hikes in the hills. And I saw friends and family. One night I saw the southern lights. It was very chill. I could probably have lived in that spring forever.

I clearly had a lot of time for reflection in spring 25 because my spring playlist reached 101 minutes and 26 songs. That’s two new songs a week on average that I considered worth engraving on my psyche to remember this time of my life by.

Songs that remind me of walking while wearing a jacket. Lunchtime exercise. Walking by the lake. Cooking BBQs. Driving around the suburbs. Writing XML by hand. Walking by the lake (again). Going off to get motor oil for my chainsaw. Walking by the lake (a third time). Walking by the lake (wow).

I have turned a whole pumpkin into a bulk meal for the last time in 2025. It was 29° today, and basically the equinox of my seasonal diet. After months straight of cereal and yoghurt for breakfast I cranked out a delicious mango and banana smoothie that tasted great. It also took a lot longer to consume, meaning I didn't get Nash out for her walk until 9:30. At that point the sun had been up long enough that all the flowers were open and there was a slope of different coloured petals under the nicest of blue skies and I thought to myself, fuck yeah. Look at those flowers.

One pelican encounter later I was back home making a hot coffee. Then one of my lunchtime meetings was cancelled, meaning I had 45 minutes to devour my first giant chicken salad of the season. This summer I've decided I will eat salads with high protein feta. Then that afternoon I had an ice coffee.

Dinner was a very hearty, pumpkin based pasta with terrible pumpkin muffins as an entree. It took me two hours to prep and cook, but I still made it to the beach right before the sun hit the horizon. The colours were mint. I wore only a shirt and shorts. I thought to myself again, fuck yeah.