Bird-Blog Article Format Advice? (2 Viewers)

[Alexjh1]

Just a bit of a random thread - I've kind of hit a point in my Bird-dex blog where I want to tweak the format a little, but thought I'd get some advice this time. The blog is here for reference.

The current top article (Spanish Imperial Eagle) is a rough attempt at what I want the new format to be like, while everything else is the old format, but I would really welcome any suggestions!

Current ideas:
- Get rid of the photo grade listing - it's kind of obvious from the photo itself.
- Get rid of bird guides rating - birds are increasingly abroad so less relevant.
- Add in some physical dimensions (weight, length, wingspan) info
- Reformat (country) population and sites into a more concise category.
- Reformat featured subspecies into a more detailed description including subspecies, gender, age and/or plumage, plus location and month photo was taken.

Any thoughts on those - do those changes make it better or worse? Or anything else that would be worth including?

About the only thing is I don't want to include anything that is too time consuming or requires code or external features if I can help it, it will take long enough to update everything as it is without having to make sure code works every single time!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Nutcracker]

Going through the older entries, one glaring howler: hyphens are not followed by capitals. Black-winged Kite, not Black-Winged Kite, and so on throughout :t:

 

[Alexjh1]

Thanks, that's a thing that can be fixed!

 

[Alexjh1]

I had a go at doing another article in the newer style, this time I picked Black-necked grebe as it's a handy species which has all the major options I might have - subspecies, changes in plumage, seen in 3 different countries including the UK, an alternate common name and indeed, a name with a hyphen in it.

Any thoughts? Here is the article for slavonian grebe in the old format for comparison.

 

[dantheman]

Interesting. :t:

(One point - note the complete latin binomial (or trinomial) should all be in italics, not just the subspecies portion.) Podiceps nigricollis nigricollis

Also the taxonomy on the right side is all quite muddled, but that should be easy to fix?



Some general thoughts (if you don't mind) ...

What is the purpose of the blog? Primarily for yourself as a record of your photos? Or as a resource/education tool based on the species you have seen for others to use? Or a combination?

I have to admit, as a complete outsider and not knowing you, the blog is a bit how to say it, random? I kind of think we need an introduction to you to help put it all in context, and it might be interesting to post (or link) to trips on which you have seen these species, and maybe to put some targets up.

I note that the families/genera are clickable on from the links at the top, but not the right hand side bar.

Your individual species accounts are interesting and worth a read. I'm wondering about all the other information though. I can see it as potentially a good resource - just what to include or not include. I guess that is the dilemma you're in!

For 'other names' it might be worth stating where used - eg Eared Grebe (USA) whereas Pharoah's Chicken (love it!) for Egyptian Vulture it would be nice to know where or when. I didn't see any alternatives but eg Lapwing -Peewit (English - call sound) or Little Grebe - Dabchick (Old English name)

btw - BN Grebe - main wintering is on South coast estuaries as opposed to lakes (eg Fal Estuary and Poole Harbour).

Hope this is useful.

Cheers, Dan

 

[Alexjh1]

Thanks for the detailed response, that's the kind of detailed feedback that should be really helpful in shaping it!

In response to your specific points.

- With the taxonomy on the right hand side, I must admit that that was originally a bit of a cosmetic thing - generally the side panels look a bit nicer when they are a bit fuller, and ideally in cases where the group isn't very iconic in popular consciousness (the parrots section for instance) I've tried to keep things to a minimum size of at least two sub-categories or about 6 individual species. That being said, now you mention it, since I initially did the layout some sections I have done a lot more international birding and previously very small groups have swollen into something more viable. So for instance I'll spin out herons/ibises and spoonbills into a single panel, and the same with cranes, rails and crakes. It will leave me with a weird little bunch of storks, bustards and flamingos left over, but will certainly be a bit more accurate. I guess the other concern sections would be the divers/cormorants/grebes, cuckoos/nightjars/swifts and gannet left in with petrels and shearwaters? Cormorants probably need spinning off the most but there aren't quite enough species to make me happy with it.

I'm hopefully going to Malaysia later in the year though, which will hopefully result in a very large influx of species, enough to spin off a lot and still have it look nice.

- This is a very good question! I should be able to have a fidget around in the panels to see if there is a way I can add a little introduction text panel at the top, which would hopefully clarrify that? I think the broad aim when I started was kind of to produce something which would function as something that was... trying to explain this to my own satisfaction now... kind of half way between a bird-book and a travelogue? There is no real point in me producing a purely educational resource in the traditional sense because it will lack the scope and depth that could be provided by either wiki-style crowd sourcing or something being written by experts (which I am certainly not). I guess the key points I want to get to would be a) for a beginner, how do you go about seeing this species, b) what about each species is cool and/or interesting, whether that is biologically, behaviorally, aesthetically, historically or culturally and c) potentially any interesting annecdotes about this species or my search for it.

- I could certainly go back and add in a link to trip reports from foreign trips I've done in a tab in the top, or perhaps format them up as .pdfs and have them downloadable direct from the site? That might be a bit neater and useful for people considering doing trips like that of their own if they can have them saved?

- I should be able to make the family names clickable, though that might be a fairly length process going back through and making sure everything is tagged properly, but will add it to the to do list!

- The what data problem is definitely a consideration I've been rolling round a fair bit - broadly I think the stuff I like the most is definitely the ones which allow the blog to be filtered easily - so the UK and IUCN conservation statuses, the taxonomy and the locations work well in my mind because they let you compare things by bunches by just clicking on a link. I decided to give the dimensions a try just because it will hopefully give a bit more of a context for the photos and gave it a factfile sort of quality which I thought fit with the "collecting" theme.

Examples of other things I did consider but decided against for now would be habitat and food, just because they are often going to be very nebulous generalizations. It's all very well me saying that bird x lives in this kind of forest and eats this kind of seed when that's not guaranteed - especially when I'm increasingly relying on vagrants to fill out my remaining UK species.

- I very much like the idea of the alternate name usage notes, I'll have to have a play around though to make sure the formatting is nice.

- This is very much a problem I face regularly I'm afraid (and why comments on foreign birds' distribution tend to be VERY vague) I'm broadly fairly self taught from books and the internet as a bird-watcher, so there are probably going to be a lot of gaps just like that one where I'm relying on my own experiences unless I've specifically seen something to the contrary somewhere. I'm more than happy to amend things though if they are pointed out to me though, so it'll just have to be an ongoing process.

Really huge thanks though, there is certainly a lot there to ponder, and some stuff I'll start implementing as soon as I have enough time

 

[Alexjh1]

Started implementing some of the changes suggested, mainly in making the names clickable and rearranging the families down the side bar a bit.

Changes are:
- Split Cormorants off from the Cormorant/Diver/Grebe category, and take Gannet from its left over place with the tubenoses to form a group that more accurately reflects Suliformes.
- Split off the crakes & rails and cranes from the big weird lumpy section where I'd dumped anything that even slightly resembled a heron into a new Gruiforme themed category.
- Split off Herons and Ibises and Spoonbills from the afformentioned dump bin section into a new Pelecaniformes themed category.
- Within the Passerines section, split off both Bearded Tit and Bushtits into their own categories.

There are a bunch of issues I know about still remaining, and if anyone has any suggestions on how to deal with them in a way that still looks neat, I'd be interested.

- Divers are still paired with Grebes - I could theoretically pair off grebes with flamingos from one of the remaining waste-bin categories to create something with more taxonomic precedent?
- Cuckoos, Nightjars and Swifts are still dumped in together - this will probably stay for now until I get more species.
- King-fisher, Bee-eater and Hoopoe are still dumped in together - again this will probably stay until I have enough species to split it up.
- Pipits and Wagtails are split at a higher level within passerines than everyone else, which I will totally admit is an aesthetic based choice, so will probably stay.
- Not really sure what to do with raptors? I would prefer to keep the categories I have now, and add more if necessary, but splitting things further without it getting very fragmented is probably not doable? MY understanding is that eagles are no more differentiated from hawks taxonomically than say... harriers, but as a more culturally iconic bunch would prefer to keep them separate. The alternate would be to split the hawks into hawks, buzzards, kites, harriers and osprey?
- Also, should I be splitting falcons off into their whole own section - last I heard it sounded like it was going that way?
- Storks/Bustards/Flamingo is another waste-bin grouping - flamingo can go off with grebes and still look neat. The closest pairing for bustards I understand would be cuckoos which is a weird combination, and I would kind of prefer to leave them in a wastebin group for now.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!