Who sends the visitors?

This blog is blessed with a good number of visitors per day - sometimes this can be boosted if a particular blog post has been mentioned elsewhere (Facebook, Twitter or even a link on Bird Forum) - but ordinarily a fair number of visitors will come here from a referring site, in other words another blog that has kindly linked North Downs and beyond to itself. I have a similar list of blogs to the right of this post, places that I like to spend time trawling through, full of words crafted by others that entertain and inform in equal measure - please visit them, you will not be disappointed. Some of those blogs do not link other blogs at all, which I never really understand. At a basic level you could call it mutual back-scratching but I prefer to think of it as attempting to spread the word about the wonders of the natural world and the joy it can bring... but I digress.

In the 'stats' area of this blog (that only I get to see) is a section that lets you know where your visitors come from. Most of these will be regulars who bookmark this blog or who search it out directly via a search engine. Others will be casual internet roamers who are directed here when they are looking for a particular subject. And then there are those who are prompted to visit while they are spending time on another blog, a blog that is linked to this one. Since ND&B started up again (in 2010) the following blogs have provided me with the most visitors. In order they are:

1. Wanstead Birder (Jono Lethbridge) 
2. Boulmer Birder (Stewart Sexton)
3. Peter Alfrey's Birding Notebook
4. Ploddingbirder (Martin Casemore)
5. Surrey Bird Club
6. Not Quite Scilly (Gavin Haig)

Thank you all! Your support is much appreciated. I can only hope that ND&B sends you back as many visitors in return. This blogging lark is a funny old thing. I've made many 'virtual friends' as a consequence, held conversations, argued, commiserated, laughed and almost shed a tear without having actually been within many miles of quite a few of them. I've met up with bloggers when I've been in their neck of the woods and have yet to meet one who wasn't thoroughly decent (whether that feeling has been reciprocated is not known!) Blogging is sometimes seen as 'old hat', lacking the immediacy of Twitter. To me it's still a fine platform on which to communicate. We all have our reasons for carrying on doing it. It's more personal, more thorough. A sound-bite is sometimes all that is needed, but the human being behind such declarations is missing. It's cathartic. It keeps the grey matter moving. It is a way of expressing yourself and trying to be creative with words. If you've not tried it before, do give it a go. We've all got something to say, we've all got observations to share. And if you do, let me know and I'll add your shiny new blog onto that list on the right hand side.

Comments

Adam Hartley (Gnome) said…
Nice post! I must admit that even if no one else every read my blog I'd still do it. I treat it as a diary and love being able to look back and remind myself about past successes and failures.
19 December 2017 at 11:42
Steve Gale said…
Gnome's Birding Diary is always a good read Adam, keep it up!!
19 December 2017 at 13:10
Chris Janman said…
As a non-blogger i appreciate all the effort and time that goes into them, thank you all, and a Merry Christmas.
19 December 2017 at 14:07
Steve Gale said…
Thank you Chris, and a Merry Christmas to you too.
19 December 2017 at 15:35
Arjun Dutta said…
I get the feeling that mine is definitely a one-way thing - most of the readers of my blog come from here Steve so thanks for that!
19 December 2017 at 17:34
Simon Douglas Thompson said…
I'm not really a birder so wouldn't expect any traffic coming back!
19 December 2017 at 17:43
Steve Gale said…
It will build Arjun - I enjoy your posts and as time goes on your blog will reach a wider audience. Keep at it!
19 December 2017 at 18:56
Steve Gale said…
Simon, apologies! Just realised your blog is not linked to mine. Will put that right very soon.
19 December 2017 at 18:57
Derek Faulkner said…
I tend to have the same views as Adam's re. blogging.
20 December 2017 at 09:38
Steve Gale said…
And long may you continue Derek.
20 December 2017 at 17:23
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more