Website news archives

01.10.10

Happy belated birthday Manchester Birding.

I didn't exactly miss my own birthday. I knew it was on the 16th of September it had been four years since I started this website (but not the forum, that came later) and one birder at least took the time to wish me happy birthday ☺. Trouble is that county birding has been soooo enjoyable recently that I've spent less and less time away from the computer and the articles, site guides and the like that now remain half written or researched. I really must try harder, though preferably when the nights get shorter and shorter so I'm not missing any birding time! Anyway, those four years have really flown by and single handedly running this, my own personal website, is still as enjoyable now as it was back then.

Of course it would be nothing without the contributions and participation of you people out there, without which I doubt I'd really bother. A massive thanks to you all. The generosity of many, especially the photographers, continues to surpass my expectations and those who continue to keep my inbox (text and email) full and also my desk heavily laden with post-it notes for competition entries, list updates and the like make it all seem worthwhile.

Fear not though, as Manchester Birding still strives to improve and increase with slight changes ahead for it's appearance and it's content to be improved with more site guides and others heavily revised and improved. Several articles are due to hit the pages when I eventually pull my finger out and I have a stack of incredible photographs still to get out there yet (though please bear with me photographers as this process can be particularly time consuming and I'm afraid there's still a bit of light left in the evenings for watching gulls!)

To date though, the website's success can be seen by it's statistics. Not half bad for a little, inland north-west England county. Total visitors to the site are now 67,736 and total hits 2,162,195. That's an average over four years of 328 visits a day!

Success shouldn't really be gauged by statistics though and perhaps the biggest impact the Manchester Birding website has had is on our county birding. Set out with a whimsical intention to improve, encourage and increase county birding I feel we're on the right track and doing well. As for it's intention to build our birding community, well I personally believe we've surpassed all expectations. Sure, there's been ups and downs along the way but by and large we really have something for other counties to be envious of. Sure, they might have better birds than us (although I think we're making in roads into that) but as for a whole package, few can match us.

Cheers everybody, a big thanks and long may it continue, well, at least until I bugger off to live in Cornwall anyway ☺

06.06.10

Manchester Birding website hits new highs.

Okay, so statistics aren't everyone's cup of tea but they do give a good idea of just how popular this website has become and how often you damn fine folk are checking it out. Last month (May 2010) smashed all previous records for this website and broke a fairly significant barrier which I've been expecting for a while. Note that these figures are for this, the website alone and do not include the forum.

May's total visits numbered 15,310 (that's 494 a day!) but individual hits smashed through the half a million per month mark at 541,229. Magnificent ☺.

As always I sincerely thank all visitors to the site for continuing it's popularity and in the process for driving me on to improve and add to it's content. There are many new articles in the pipeline but I just need a relatively quiet birding period to get the all completed! So, cheers everyone.

Statistics might not be everybody's cup of tea but they are the best way of judging the popularity and support for websites atleast and Manchester Birding is no different. It came as quite a surprise then that January was a monster month for the Manchester Birding website (and associated forum), exceeding all previous months and setting a new record, just when I thought we'd hit our best we go one better! This is of course thanks to it's faithful and keen followers and I cannot express my thanks to you all, Manchester Birding is now clearly one of the most popular birding websites in the UK!

January's figures are incredibly impressive at 14,216 visits and 388,239 hits alone with the Manchester Birding forum setting it's own record at a frankly astonishing 132,235 visits alone during the month, up 100 visits a day and gathering a further 44 registered users along the way!

The full statistics can be viewed at the bottom of this page here but I sincerely hope it continues to grow and develop, it's a lot of hard work but you make it all very well worth it, so I thank you.

Manchester Birding breaks all records and sets new highs.

May 2008's county birding was easily some of the best on record and not surprisingly the Manchester Birding website (not the forum) achieved it's best month since it's inception in September 2006. Despite coming close a few times in recent months my new found ambition to manage a quarter of a million hits in a month (yes that's right, 250,000!) was realised with a frankly massive 279, 981 hits and 12,059 visits during May alone, figures which would seem to belie our small county and 'poxy' website but there you are, you can't argue with popularity like that and once again my thanks are to all visitors for your support.

Total website hits since September 2006 now stand at 3,202,160 and visits at 136,519 and the Manchester Birding forum (still kindly sponsored by Birdnet Information) continues to go from strength to strength with now 242 registered users (and many more not registered!), a daily average of 17 new posts and total views of 932,074, it's popularity is clear to see and that is all down to you, it's users ☺.

16.12.07

Manchester Birding goes from strength to strength and achieves a new high.

The Manchester Birding website continues to exceed all my expectations thanks to the support from all it's visitors and contributors and after taking 9 and a half months to break it's first million hits (on the 20th June 2007) in the following six months (infact just under!) we have broken our second, with website hits as of the 16th December at 2,005,832. Our 'little inland north-west England' county continues to put others to shame with it's birding community in full swing, the only way now is up...

16.10.07

The Manchester Birding Forum is now 1 year old.

As of the 15th of October 2007 the Manchester Birding Forum was 1 year old. It started out it's life as a crappy little number that came with the program I utilised to build the site but I quickly realised that it was never going to work, fortunately though Tom McKinney (cheers Tom!) kindly put me onto Sparklit, an American hosting company that offered free web space for very professional looking forums. Myself and the forum have never looked back since, I upgraded to an even more professional package (and one without loads of adverts on it!) for a small annual sum but the forums overwhelming success meant I quickly exceeded my monthly 'users views allowance' and had to pay a monthly fee, fortunately Birdnet Information offered to sponsor the forum and all was well once again.

So, how successful has it been in it's first year? Total views to date stand at 407,174, that's an average of 1131 views a day! There are 4666 comments now on there of 1056 topics, 156 registered users and an average of 13 new posts per day making the Manchester Birding Forum one of the most successful and useful county birding forums in the UK.

I would like to thank Birdnet Information for their sponsorship, Tom McKinney, Ian Woosey (for his moderation assistance) and mostly the forum's users both regular and infrequent (and all in between!) for their continued use and in making the forum their very own, long may it continue and go from strength to strength.

Manchester Birding Forum, sponsored by

Cheers and best wishes, Ian McKerchar.

14.09.07

The Manchester Birding website is 1 year old today.

The Manchester Birding website was first published on the 14th of September 2006 and had originally come from an ambition I had harboured for many years but never had the knowledge nor will to really get it off the ground. Things haven't changed that much, the will is there but the knowledge is still generally lacking but I get by and despite the ups and downs of creating the site, which included at one point somehow deleting all the pages I had finished and the often frustrating lack of knowledge of all things web-site based on my behalf, I managed to get it published and in the first full month (October 2006) the site managed 1248 visits and 39,562 hits, figures I was extremely pleased with. Had those statistics never changed until the present date I'd still have been chuffed with them but since it's creation the Manchester Birding website has taken on a meteoric rise, compare those statistics from October 2006 with those from August 2007 which achieved 7518 visits and a frankly massive (for a little county like ours) 204,467 hits, in a month (!), and it's popularity is plain to see. Of course this popularity is due only to those who visit the site and my thanks are to all of you for your continued support, I sincerely hope it continues, I would also like to thank all the many, often very regular, contributors, be they photographers, article writers, competition and Tournament entrants, list contributors, those who provide me with information for the site and/or help and assistance with computer stuff that generally fries my brain, the forum sponsors birdnetinformation and very importantly, those who simply offer encouragement, your help has been and will continue to be very much appreciated. In the first full year the site has achieved 60,386 total visits and 1,469,654 total hits, statistics that have perhaps 'maxed out' for our little county but I have much more planned for the site and more features which will enhance it's true status as a resource for county birding and beyond, I just have to find the time to do it all, so stick with it and please continue to send me any ideas or comments you may have, be they good or bad, everything is atleast considered.

And finally...

Spending almost every single day of the past year at some point on the computer, updating or formulating new ideas for the site (not to mention moderating the forum, which is another story 'cos it isn't a year old yet!) has been a absolute pleasure, otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't do it but I have to say that to a large extent the site has achieved my original goal, that of bringing our county birding community together. We have all met birders we never knew existed, visited birding sites we had never visited before, found new friends, seen new birds, learned new things and had a laugh, all thanks to manchesterbirding.com. We have had our first website 'out-of-county invasion', we now have a real, live, proper forum which has become a hive of information for county birding, a very successful birding Tournament and 1,292 photographs throughout the site to name just a few of our great features, long may it continue...it's been a blast ☺

Ian

The Manchester Birding website has just passed the million total hits since first being published in September 14th, 2006, not bad for a little inland north-west England county! Once again many thanks to all it's users and contributors who have brought about it's success, now onwards and upwards ☺

As you may have already noticed, the Manchester Birding forum is now being sponsored by Birdnet Information. This is due to the success of the forum now costing me money each month to run and not being one to complain, infact I'm obviously very glad it's proven so popular, Birdnet Information kindly agreed to offer me some sponsorship for which I am extremely grateful. Birdnet offer a couple of superb pager deals for receiving bird information not just locally but for the whole of the UK and also offer many other bird information services, so please check out their website at www.birdnetinformation.co.uk

Anyway, the website statistics from conception (the end of September 2006) to the end of May 2007 are extremely healthy and this month will undoubtedly see the million total hits smashed, so keep your eyes open for that momentous day! We have now achieved 937,349 hits and 37,742 visits, with the forum going from strength to strength with a total of 227,535 views (and a staggering 44,000 alone in May 2007!), running at an average of 1,020 a day, we have 134 registered users and there are over 2600 posts in total, currently averaging 12 a day.

Having recently recovered from a very stressful collapse of the hard drive on my computer resulting in the loss of much data and many photographs I'm now hopefully back up and running. I will however be taking a couple of planned weeks away from the computer which will result in no updates during that time and certain features being later than usual, so my apologies for that but normal service will be resumed with lots of new stuff and features. If you happen to email for any reason during this time (mystery bird answers etc) you will of course, not receive and answer but I will reply to all emails when I switch the thing back on!

The website and forum within it are going from strength to strength thanks to all your participation and support and the statistics upto and including the 30th of March 2007 (from the date of publication of the site) are quite superb!

The website has now accumulated 24,838 visits and a frankly staggering 631,337 hits (well on the way to the million!), whilst the forum now has 120 registered users with 458 topics and 1,482 posts!

Keep your support coming and as always, any ideas or improvements will be gratefully received.

I have made afew slight changes to the homepage of the website, mainly so's to incorporate the new systematic county bird list onto it's own separate page. In the coming months the systematic list will incorporate a new and exiting feature of added record details, such as listing all individual records of species occurring 10 times or less in the county (and perhaps more for certain species), the highest recorded flocks of certain species and any other such interesting facts and figures. This feature will take some time to assemble, so I will let everyone know here, when it is complete, although it may well be a 'rolling' process.

The 'County Bird Report' page is now incorporated in the 'Bird Recording and County Rarities' page.

Last year, the Greater Manchester Bird Recording Group took the initiative to withdraw all information of Ruddy Ducks from their annual County Bird Reports due to the ongoing action of culling Ruddies by DEFRA, over the alleged problems between them (do I mean DEFRA of the Ruddies???) and the endangered White-headed Duck. This website will follow the GMBRA and too withdraw any information on Ruddies, including postings on the county bird news forum, especially considering DEFRA's recent announcement of planned culls at Pennington Flash and the Wigan Flashes. I hope all visitors to the site will understand my position, whatever their personal opinions but should they feel strongly enough and wish their opinion to be known, they are welcome to contact me using the link on the toolbar below.

Thankfully, as a result of my recent plea, courtesy of county birder Tom McKinney, the problems encountered on the home page, particularly by users of browsers such as Firefox, should have been resolved. With matters well above my head Tom's intervention was very well appreciated and my thanks are to him- good job Tom!

A 'proper' forum for county bird sightings has now been added to the site and users should read the 'welcome to this forum' message carefully so they understand the guidelines of the forum. Users wishing to post their sightings on the forum must register first, this is mainly due to anonymous postings leading to numerous problems ranging from the veracity of sightings information posted, to exposing this forum and it's users to risks from viruses and other internet threats. If you don't want to post messages you are not required to register in order to view them, but I would encourage all county birders to join in, register and make this forum a true resource for birding in our county.

As those of you who have used (or rather have attempted to use) the bird sightings forum on this site will know, it is rubbish and doesn't appear to work! My apologies to all those who have submitted their sightings only for them to either not appear, be wiped off or to appear after a load of other out of date crap before it. I'm not sure what the problem is, other than the program is frankly as useful as a chocolate fireguard and moves are afoot to replace this item with an altogether more professional and functional one. Of course this means I'll have to learn a bit more about how something else works/is built, but with a brain constantly full of fantasy rarities I believe I'll find any minute or being bashed about a rugby pitch every Saturday this tends to take some time.............so please bear with me!

Anybody with any knowledge of such computery type things such as forums (and HTML or php) shouldn't hesitate to contact me and be prepared to receive inordinate amounts of stupid, basic questions from someone who has built his own website (this one!) from good fortune, lots of swearing/ranting and volumes of trial and error you wouldn't believe..................