Afternoon all - only just found this thread.
We don't change things on a whim, and we certainly didn't make these changes for the sake of it - the only practical way for me to add the new Western Palearctic functionality was to reorganise the way all the reports are rendered. I would usually agree with the policy "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but the old page really
was "broke" - for a start, it used long HTML tables, which are deprecated these days, have their own layout problems and render slowly. Also the "cacheing" mechanism behind the scenes was years old and was significantly impacting on database performance. Anyway, I hope you'll get used to the new look; the pages are smaller to download, should render more quickly, and technically are a lot simpler behind the scenes and thus easier to maintain and develop.
As noted in the comments on our webzine article, there were a few early teething troubles with the page (all of which I've fixed) and we're still considering some of the cosmetic suggestions. Most of the reported layout problems have, on further investigation, turned out to be from people using older versions of Internet Explorer (older versions of IE have notoriously poor support for CSS - cascading stylesheets - which are the recommended tool for modern web layout). Incidentally, a "hard refresh" (Ctrl+F5) or changing "Compatibility Mode" settings fixes some of the problems, if you insist on using an out-of-date browser (or are forced to, as some people are at work).
Stonefaction: I think you may have encountered a bug (now fixed) whereby a user's "filter" settings weren't being remembered between visits to the page. You should find now that if you set up a filter and apply it (click "Apply filter" in the right-hand menu) that filter is applied by default thereafter.
Adey: regarding the white space either side, don't forget that websites are increasingly viewed on smartphones and tablets, where screen width is very limited, so the restricted width of the current BirdGuides page is a considered compromise between the needs of computer users vs mobiles; I take the point about longer species names disrupting the columns, but I tried lots of different layouts and this was the best compromise.
(And yes, if you've got a problem it's usually best to contact the people responsible rather than grumbling on a forum somewhere else
)
All the best
Dave Dunford
(BirdGuides webmaster)