Wildlife Photography across the Water: site stats

Sunday, 1 March 2009

A look back on the 1st Day of Spring

White Rabbits!!!

OK - so on the 1st day of the Spring here in the UK, I thought I would have a look back at the progress we have made with this blog after our first two months of writing.

Looking back at the stats since I hooked the 'Analytics' up in early Jan, we have had over 4000 visits, with just over 8000 page views.

You have visited us from 317 cities from 41 countries now. We are now looking forward to visits from South America, the Middle East and more of Africa, so if you know any friends in these countries, please spread the word, we would love to see them here.

On the technical front, the photographic community is a little more discerning when it comes to browsing habits, with 47% of you NOT using MS IE browser and 88% of you realising the benefits of 32 bit colour on your screen settings.

11.3% of you use Macs while the rest of us don't!!!

Peak visiting day is Thursday and Saturday is the lowest, as I expect you are all out photographing or on trips.....or doing chores in the house like me.

So thanks to all of you who have supported us, and particularly so if you have been linking through Amazon to make your purchases, it provides welcome support to the site.

If you have any great links, news items or things you want from us, then please let us know, we would welcome lots more comments and interaction from you. Particularly if there are any subjects you want us to write about.

I have added a Poll on the right hand side, so we would welcome your views and feedback on that.

Having spent yesterday in my garden doing various things, it is good to see new growth on the hedging, and at least four species of wildflower are in bloom from my planting last year.

Update: Make that five species, plus two lots of frog spawn!!

Another update: Nine frogs at it in the pond!!!

I am going to get on processing images now as I have to prepare for a photographic talk that I am giving on Wednesday week entitled 'Wildlife in the Highlands and Islands' at the Smethwick Photographic Society Nature Group as a practice run before I give it during Wild Isles week on the Island of Mull in May this year

Martin

Friday, 16 January 2009

Views - Stats and feedback

OK, a short post update from me today. After Dave and I launched this blog, I set up the Google Analytics module to let us have some feedback and data. Well what a great tool it is - so much data to be a total geek over. And it is from that data that I thought I would share a few thoughts with you.
Firstly, thank you to all our visitors, those who have signed up as 'Friends' and those of you who have signed up with the RSS feed, and of course to those of you that have left comments. We really do appreciate that and will reflect on those comments and make specific posts on any request. So thanks and please do feel free to comment on any of the posts - whether you agree or disagree - all welcomed.
So some 'stat porn' that may be of interest to you. We have been visited from 17 countries in the eight days since Analytics started, with the majority from the UK from 66 cities from all countries of the Union, so thanks Joe over there. And to the rest of you across the world, we are slowly colouring in the world map a nice shade of green.
Clearly the wildlife and photographic community is more tech savvy than the rest of the general population with 38% using Firefox as your browser, and 7.5% using Safari.
And finally thanks for the regular visits, with 62% of visits from returning visitors
If you would like to be our 'Guest Photographer' and have a chance of a clot - one day only, please contact us here.
Tomorrow I will continue the Long Lenses Series with a follow on from the last article with more on choices of the super teles, and then you will have me again on Sunday when we launch the first of the 'Local Patch' series, when I will summarise on what we have been watching in the garden and in our local patch since the start of the year.

Martin

Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.