Now that the recent website changes have been for the most part completed, we can finally start posting some new photographic material!
The Fox Sparrow, Passerella iliaca, is so named because of its rich reddish-brown colour and is one of our largest sparrows 17-19 cm in length. In these south-eastern parts of Ontario the Fox Sparrow is only seen for a week or two every fall as it is heading to the very Northern reaches of the province to nest. It’s a hard to bird to see, not only because it doesn’t stay in this area very long, but it prefers lurking in impenetrable thick brushy habitat where it forages on the ground for seeds, berries and any invertebrates it may find. They are quite aggressive as they scrape the ground for food which is often a noisy process. That along with their unique song makes them one of those frustrating birds you often can hear but don’t see. The Fox Sparrow usually nests on the ground or low in a thick bush and the female lays three to four eggs which she then incubates for about twelve days before they hatch.
The following images of a Fox Sparrow were taken about two weeks ago and I was very pleased to find these birds out in the open and even sitting on a perch. I did include two shots of a Fox Sparrow in their typical position on the ground. When shooting birds on the ground it is very important to get the camera down at the birds level, which often means lying down & getting dirty however the nice low angle makes for a much better image. Of the two ground shots below, one was taken kneeling down while the other was taken lying down. Have a close look at the two shots and you will immediately see which is the better image. So next time you take a picture of anything that’s on the ground remember to get down low yourself. It may be hard work but it’s always worth the effort.
Well the transition from old to new is finally complete with the old domain pointing to the new website and everything appears to be functioning well. Feel free to look hard to find a link that doesn’t work and let me know so that it can be fixed. The bird galleries have now been completed and although the navigation tree is a bit cumbersome it does divide the birds into more manageable size galleries and places most birds in their proper taxonomic groupings. I’ve also added Google Analytics to the site which tracks all activity and provides very detailed statistics which will help me understand who is visiting the site so that we can continue providing information relevant to those who frequent SMP. If you have a website and are not yet using Google Analytics, you should check it out right away….you will be glad you did, especially when you realize its absolutely free 🙂
The next addition to the website will be the incorporation of private client galleries for the viewing of proofs from photo shoots as well as the development of an e-commerce area for the purchase of prints, cards, calendars and other stationary items. I have also partnered with a local custom framer which will allow people to order prints matted and framed to their specifications.
Thankfully this will be the last of the ‘update’ posts. Thanks again for your patience as we’ve made the transition and I hope you enjoy the new SMP website and blog.
Well, the first SMP website that was started over two years ago has been dismantled and I pointed the www.scottmartinphotography.ca domain to the Bluehost name servers ten minutes ago. Apparently it will take a few hours for the registries to be updated & verified but once that is done all traffic will be directed to this new site. The new site is not yet completed but will be in the next couple of weeks. Please bear with us as the transition takes place. Most of the galleries have been populated however I’m still working on getting the perching bird galleries completed. After that a few more information pages will be added as well as a shopping cart enabling the ordering of prints, posters, cards, frames and those sorts of things.
The old site was a template flash-based site that was provided by www.ifp3.com and they were a great company to deal with. If you are a photographer looking for a flash web site I would recommend ifp3 as they offer the ability to build a complex multi-functional site with relative ease. I was surprised to see that over the last twelve months there were 48,622 visits to the SMP site without any significant promotion.
The biggest downside of the website overhaul has been that its been about a month since I’ve been out with a camera. At this time of year that means missing most of the raptor migration that has been taking place over Oshawa 🙂 Hopefully the winter Owls & Ducks will soon be arriving and I’ll be able to post some new shots on the blog fairly soon.
Sorry to all my birding and photography friends who were just duped by today’s blog title, however the migration we’re talking about is the website and not the far more interesting raptors which are over head and heading south as we speak 🙂
At this point the blog format is pretty much finalized, with the addition of a few widgets on the side bar and one at the end of each blog post. To the side bar has been added the opportunity to follow my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and RSS pages. You can now search for blog posts by category from the sidebar as well, which is a way of searching the archives by topic as opposed to date. Another sidebar widget lists the last five comments that have been made on blog posts. Please feel free to leave comments as it’s always a pleasure to receive them and leaving suggestions for improvement to the blog & website is the only way I can improve it. Finally at the end of each blog post is an opportunity to share that post with your Facebook, Twitter and Stumble! friends.
All of the posts from the old blog (Blogspot) were transferred to the new blog (WordPress) which included the Flickr URL’s for images. These are the smaller images that are seen in some of the old posts. I’m in the process of storing all my images on the Bluehost servers and in the future all blog and gallery images will be linked to images stored on the webhost servers. This allows for a more efficient use of bandwidth as well as allowing various animations, automatic image resizing (i.e, thumbnails) and slide show transitions that would not be otherwise possible. Once all the galleries are populated I will remove all the old blog images (with Flickr URL’s) and replace them with the images stored at Bluehost (another one of those tedious time-consuming things that need to get done).
The biggest job ahead is developing the galleries. The Cityscape gallery is now up to date and hopefully the rest of the galleries will soon follow. All of the images need to be watermarked as well which is a labour intensive but necessary task to accomplish. Having your images stolen is perhaps flattering at first but then it becomes very annoying and certainly unfair. Thanks Arni, for finally convincing me to get the images watermarked 🙂
So now its time to get back to the galleries and hopefully the next migration post will have some bird images to go along with it!!
The migration to another software platform is proving to be a real challenge, however it is not yet an insurmountable one. The progress is slow but steady and there isn’t too much pressure as the old website remains online until the end of the month. The open source WordPress software is robust, giving full access to the code for developers and yet has relatively simple graphical interfaces for the neophytes like me to get up and running relatively quickly. I’ve also subscribed to Elegant Themes who have developed a vast array of web site & blog themes that provide lots of customization and great looks. WordPress also offers thousands of plug-ins and widgets that can make your website accomplish almost anything you want it to. It looks like the biggest hurdle yet to solve is development of the gallery, which will be a challenge as the number of images needing to be efficiently cataloged is huge and its not as simple as importing them from one website to another.
All this time spent in front of the computer today has reminded me that I should have paid more attention in those computer science classes many years ago. What meager skills I have are very rusty, which is a perfect segue to a couple of shots of a Rusty Blackbird taken last week at Cranberry Marsh. These birds are usually on the ground so it was a treat to actually get some shots of them perched.
After much investigation, I’ve decided to make a radical change to the website and blog in order to make them function more seamlessly together and also develop a more professional web presence. This change will take place over the next few weeks however as with all websites it will remain a work in progress as we continually strive to make it better. Although the appearance of the website will change dramatically, the ‘back end’ will change even more as we move to a new web hosting company, Bluehost, and re-write the website and blog using WordPress which is a big change from our old template driven flash site. Although the flash site had many advantages and was easy to set up, WordPress offers far more flexibility and the opportunity to build a comprehensive website to best showcase our photography. I stand at the bottom of a huge learning curve, but it is an exciting one. Please stand by as we transition to the new site and any suggestions or comments you may have are more than welcome.
This post is actually the first using WordPress, however all the posts from the old Blogger site have been successfully imported into the new blog….and now to switch gears and see if the image linking works I’d like to show you two little birds from last week’s trip down to Hall’s Road in Ajax. The first is a White Breasted Nuthatch which is a resident of the area who provided a classic Nuthatch pose.
The second shot is of a female Eastern Towhee which are only seen around this area for a week or so every spring & fall as they pass through during their migration.
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