Friday, February 4, 2011

BLOG VISITORS

I remain impressed.

65 visitors from six different countries have now at least briefly perused this simple blog. I am well aware that other blog sites attract even larger audiences but to this humble, and often hesitant blogger, the volume of passing traffic comes as a rather pleasant surprise. And the site is comparatively new!

I can understand the 24 Australian visitors. Australian birding blogs appear to be far and few between. At least, several GOOGLE searches, using a wide variety of keywords, sheds only limited light on potential sites. Many birders, myself included, enjoy sharing birding experiences with other kindred spirits and while birding with a group is often the more direct solution, it is not always possible to be part of a birding crowd. Blogs provide one possible alternative. We may not be able to join others physically but we can at least share birding experiences and thoughts online. Thus, birders of that ilk tend to gravitate towards blog sites.

To some extent I can also understand the seven U.K. visitors. As part of the preparation for our recent [September 2010] trip to the Old Dart I made my first venture into Bloggersphere with Staffordshire Stray. That site attracted a reasonable number of British visitors, together with a fair smattering of “overseas” guests. Perhaps a number of the 173 U.K. visitors, and others, have filtered across to both the Allen Road and South Burnett blogs.

Similarly, the five visitors from the USA could be simple transfers from the 24 that visited the original Staffordshire Stray blog. On the other hand, they could be totally new viewers.

What I find most amazing are the 27 Russian visitors. To the best of my knowledge I have no birding contacts from the Russian Federation, indeed, given the Polish surname, I have no birding contacts in Poland either [although I note a Polish visitor to my Staffordshire Stray blog].

I wonder about the one German visitor. Is this the same birder who visited the Staffordshire Stray blog or is it a completely new convert to my Allen Road ramblings?

And of course there is now a visitor from India. Oddly enough, Fay and I have included India on our shortlist for possible birding venues in 2012. Is this a coincidence, or an fortuitous omen?

Each and every one of you is more than welcome to my Allen Road blog, as you are to my South Burnett and Staffordshire Stray blogs, although now that Fay and I are back in Australia the latter will, by force, be a little thin in content –until we plan our next U.K. sojourn and, with family and friends still domicile there, I can’t see a time when we won’t plan a future return.

Enough already! If Dreamtime “dolphin” personalities revel in lists, the Slav in my veins wallows in garrulousness.

The accompanying photograph of a Pied Currawong Strepera graculina,
nestled on the lower newel of our front steps, was actually part of the original point of this blog but the sight of all those flags rather waylaid me. Keep reading, I’ll reurn to this awesome yellow-eyed Artamidid anon.

PS In the space of time it has taken for me to create this blog, a further five visitors have browsed here. 70 and counting!

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