Spurn online

[garry1366]

Hello,
Sorry but blatant plug here. The new Spurn website is now online. Some pages are still under construction but much of the site is uploaded. It can be found at

www.spurnbirdobservatory.co.uk (http://www.spurnbirdobservatory.co.uk)

Constructive comments welcome

Cheers
G

[Darrell Clegg]

Hello,
Sorry but blatant plug here. The new Spurn website is now online. Some pages are still under construction but much of the site is uploaded. It can be found at

www.spurnbirdobservatory.co.uk (http://www.spurnbirdobservatory.co.uk)

Constructive comments welcome

Cheers
G

Great site Garry, well done to all involved. I shall look forward to checking it often. Very interesting Wagtail photo you got there.

Darrell

[POP]

Garry many thanks for the info.If you see him give my regards to "Big Dave" just tell him the old boy was asking after him.

POP

[dan pointon]

Good stuff Garry, will be useful to me certainly as i'm soon coming to Spurn for a 4 day period.

[Bubbs]

Great site, especially recent sightings.

John.

[brianfm]

Nice site. Added to my favs. Will keep looking.

[dbradnum]

Nice website, Garry...

... as long as you use MS Internet Explorer!

On Firefox, none of the images on the homepage load up at all, and none of the links on the navigation bar on the left work (you just get a "Page not found" error).

[Eider-Duck]

Very interesting site.

[Andrew-Bede]

Nice website, Garry...

... as long as you use MS Internet Explorer!

On Firefox, none of the images on the homepage load up at all, and none of the links on the navigation bar on the left work (you just get a "Page not found" error).
Yes, I second this. Any chance of it being fixed please as I do not like anything to do with MS and try to avoid it as far as possible.

[garry1366]

David/Andrew,


Unfortunately I'm pretty clueless about website codes, I got a friend to write it and as it's for the Obs (a charity) it cost us nothing. Therefore it is unlikely to be sorted out for other browsers, at least in the short term. You could always just use internet explorer like the other c99% of the population.

Garry

[Tim Allwood]

Hi Garry

that's very neat indeed

will hopefully inspire a few more...

Tim

[cuddy]

Added to my favourites so how about some good weather next week and i will b there.

Cuddy,

[chrisgarner]

Hi Garry, just tried to download the Friends Of Spurn appn form and got a screen full of cryptic techno gubbins!Never mind I'll pick one up from Kew Villa tomorrow.I am surprised that the £2fiddy-whoops £3!-doesn't go straight to the Obs coffers,but then I forget Spurn isn't just for birders ;) Great website,fantastic to have an up to date sightings resource.

[Steve Lister]

Fascinating biography of Barry Spence in the Articles section.

I will always remember the neatly-written graffiti in the Crown and Anchor gents -
'Spence is a hybrid'

Steve

[topmate]

Therefore it is unlikely to be sorted out for other browsers, at least in the short term. You could always just use internet explorer like the other c99% of the population.

Hi Garry, you might want to check browser usage stats before dismissing the wishes of a significant percentage of your site visitors to have the site display correctly in their browser of choice. I also use firefox, so out of 13 current responses to this thread 3 would like to be using firefox.

On the plus side, I've take a look at the HTML and its a fairly simple mistake that the person responsible for creating your site has made. For all the images that are not displaying properly in firefox, back slashes have been used where forward slashes should be. For example, the image on the front page of the site has this code - ..\images\audouins.jpg - whereas it should be this - ../images/audouins.jpg. To correct this problem and make the site appear the same on all browsers is a 5 or 10 minute job, so shouldn't provide too much hassle for the person kind enough to give their time to create the site.

All sites have their teething problems and this is a simple one to solve. I'm sure that with the information you already have on the site and the promise of more to come that your site will be successful and hopefully even a source of revenue for the observatory. To that end, I would suggest making the application form for membership of the friends available in rich text format (rtf) and pdf as well as word document. You can save as rtf directly in word and creating pdf's is easy too. The most reliable way would be to download the completely free open office (openoffice.org) whose word processor allows you to save any word document as a pdf.

Best of luck with the website.

[garry1366]

Topmate,

I spoke to "my mate" earlier, I believe he has made some changes to the site which mean it now works with firefox. perhaps you could confirm this is correct. Thanks for your suggestions, I will certainly sort the membership forms out.

Garry

[topmate]

Hi Garry,

Yep, that's nailed it, looks the same in ie and firefox now, nice one on getting it sorted so quickly.

[dbradnum]

I believe he has made some changes to the site which mean it now works with firefox.
Excellent - cheers for sorting this out so quickly. I can only echo what others have said: it's a very good site, and I'm sure will go from strength to strength.

[garry1366]

Right thanks for the words of encouragment to all. I'm blown away by the interest so far, over 1100 hits in 6 days. I'm planning an article about peoples best days at Spurn. If you have a really striking day you remember, doesn't have to involve a mega bird just something that really stands out, I'd love you to write a few words. I intend when it is done to include days from local birders, occasional visitors and celebrities/well known birders, so get sending stuff to me please. Also I plan to sort out the gallery soon, I have lots of images of rarities in the 90's so anything from earlier periods would be very welcome. If you contribute and have a website I will gladly put up a link to your site.


G

[Reader]

I have Firefox and it works great, apart from the White's thrush not opening up on the Home Page. Have bookmarked it like the other members and look forward to watching it's progress.

Excellent stuff Garry.

[garry1366]

Hi,

It's taken a little longer than I hoped but I've just sorted some major updates to the site. The species list with links to loads of pics is now up and running. Don't forget the sightings page is updated virtually daily, and we have been requested to include species and number of birds ringed. Not much gets rung at this time of year but stuff will be starting to move through in the next few weeks so numbers will pick up.

G

[Reader]

Hi Garry

The only problem I had is that I couldn't open up the 2nd photo which I presume is of the Pine Grosbeak. Other than that it is looking good.

[Highway Man]

Strangest looking Isabelline Shrike, that I've ever seen ;) Incidentally Garry I have some in hand shots of the 1991 bird which I could scan and send you.

Regards

Mark

[garry1366]

Yes forgot to take the izzy shrike one down, haven't scanned it in yet. Any pics you have mark would be appreciated. Which pic did you mean readder I'll get onto it.

G

[Reader]

Yes forgot to take the izzy shrike one down, haven't scanned it in yet. Any pics you have mark would be appreciated. Which pic did you mean readder I'll get onto it.

G

Hi Garry

It's on the opening page. You have the Waxwing then halfway down there appears to be a photo but for me it won't open up.

[garry1366]

Hi Garry

It's on the opening page. You have the Waxwing then halfway down there appears to be a photo but for me it won't open up.

Hi Reader,

It's an old pic of the Grosbeak that has been removed if you hit F5 or refresh it should clear off almost as fast as it did in life!!!!!

G

[Reader]

Hi Reader,

It's an old pic of the Grosbeak that has been removed if you hit F5 or refresh it should clear off almost as fast as it did in life!!!!!

G

Cheers Garry

[garry1366]

The site continues to be updated, with Dragonfly and Damselflies (with pics) added to the species lists, More pics addd to the birds list and Butterflies and Moths should be up in the next few days. Also perhaps my favourite part of the site is the "extracts from the log" which will be built up year by year (1965 should be ready by the end of the weekend, Rock Bunting year! oh how I'd like a repeat of that). Again anyone with pics of historical rarities, you know real megas like Rufous Turtle Dove, Towhee etc I'd be very grateful if I could use them.

Ta

[garry1366]

I know many of visit the site regularly but for those that don't visit too often we've just completed a redesign of the site which I think is a big improvement. I've got a few things to do to tidy it up a bit but it's just about sorted. Any comments welcome, especially if you find something that's not working properly.

G

[deborah4]

Hi Gary

Great to see some artwork on the site - as someone who paints/sketches (not particularly well I might add!) field art adds a lively dimension and makes a change from just seeing pages of photos/record shots. Compliments to Ray Scally (that RB Shrike is something else!) ... hope he continues to contribute to the Spurn Site, it adds character.

[garry1366]

Hi Gary

Great to see some artwork on the site - as someone who paints/sketches (not particularly well I might add!) field art adds a lively dimension and makes a change from just seeing pages of photos/record shots. Compliments to Ray Scally (that RB Shrike is something else!) ... hope he continues to contribute to the Spurn Site, it adds character.

Hi Deborah,
The RBShrike is actually by John Grist who I have been trying to get stuff off for years! Ray did let me use some of his notebook sketches last autumn and we should see some more from him as migration picks up through the spring. He also is going to do a pic for the homepage each season.

Garry

[Mike Feely]

Hi Garry

Re-designed site looks good - no problems for me using Firefox.

Just one slight glitch, the site links along the top have a wierd greyish line above each word - this obscures the word above it (not sure if this is only on FF or also happens in IE). It's not a problem though, as it is atill clearly apparent where the link goes to.

Good stuff, hope to be back up there again soon.

Cheers

Mike

[Marcus Conway - ebirder]

Frequent visitor to the site. Looking forward to a good spring at Spurn this year. Thanks for the update.

[KnockerNorton]

Hi Garry

Re-designed site looks good - no problems for me using Firefox.

Just one slight glitch, the site links along the top have a wierd greyish line above each word - this obscures the word above it (not sure if this is only on FF or also happens in IE). It's not a problem though, as it is atill clearly apparent where the link goes to.

Good stuff, hope to be back up there again soon.

Cheers

Mike

I had that problem on IE. The links bar is a bit 'noisy' and the text doesn't stand out too well. Royal Blue on black is not a good combo at that font size, and the 2-tone grey/black effect further obscures the text as it runs right through the words. Not a huge problem, but could easily be modified to make the text clearer. Simplify the buttons (no need for 2-tone effect), increase font size, maybe change the colour to something more obvious.

Been enjoying the site for a while, particularly the daily (b)log of sightings. Fantastic Jack Snipe pics too!