Alarming Trend

As many of our bird species decline from year to year, so do the number of blog posts on Cerulean Sky. In looking at the stats on how many posts I've made per year, there has been a steady decrease.

I'm sure part of the reason for this is that when you first start a blog, there is the initial excitement of making it interesting, of getting as many posts out there as possible, to try hard to promote readership. I would like to think my writing has improved over the course of Cerulean Sky but to improve one's writing, one should write more, la?

So, when I see that in 2007, I had 68 posts, then 48 in 2008, then a lowly 29 in 2009, and a measly 13 so far in 2010, I feel rotten.

And what's up with the lack of features on blogger.com anyway? I mean, it's been alright...but a friend tells me that with Wordpress you can get stats of how many people visited, what posts were most popular, what country the reader was from, etc. Man, that's enticing. Like, I know a personal blog on birding is going to have limited readership and I'm perfectly ok with that but who knows. If I scaled up a bit and put more effort into it, maybe I could make Cerulean Sky something more.

and.....well, the fire alarm in the building I'm in is going off so I guess I better sign off?!

Update

After a conversation on Twitter through direct messages with limits of 140 characters, I ended up scoring a great contract to do species at risk research at the Six Nations Community of the Grand River. It's hard to believe really as it all happened so quickly. I'm also doing reptile studies on the side through another contract with the Long Point Basin Land Trust.

Living near Turkey Point in Norfolk County and birdwatching at Six Nations has simply been a pleasure. In a short period (I started this work in June), I feel I have improved my birding skills fairly significantly, my passion is flared up more than it's been in some time, and I've seen a number of species in juvenile form that I had no previous experience with. Norfolk County is VERY different from Essex County. Whereas Essex County is farmland, farmland, farmland, Norfolk has a significant percentage of Carolinian Forest still remaining. It's amazing what a difference it makes in the bird life.

My trip to Scotland at the end of August will mark the ending to the research at Six Nations and it will be a sad farewell but what a trip to look forward to. I went ahead and bought a couple more guides to study beforehand: Pocket Guide to the Birds of Britain and North-West Europe (fairly beginner but it's great for carrying in the field) and Collins Scottish Birds, the first field guide I've found for the specific birds of Scotland.

It's been an amazing year for me when it comes to birding. From leading hikes at Pelee in the spring to doing field work for species at risk to a trip to a new country where many lifers await me, it's all been fantastic.