AA Birdpix, Birds, Travel and More

AA Birdpix the website My blog is for interest but also to promote my website. The website started in 2004-ish as a means to sell rarity photos, but now there is little commercial aspect to it I have expanded it to a collection of galleries with photos from all over the world, mainly for interest. I have found the maintenance of it therapeutic and relaxing, since I write my own code. Whilst this does cause occasional errors, it means no annoying pop-ups, adverts or notifications. There are a number of links to other sites, and I will update them occasionally and add links if I am asked. There are also pages covering moths and butterflies, and recently  cetaceans. Another retirement hobby of mine is painting owls, and prints are available to purchase, although it's not a big commercial thing, I just enjoy it. Older sections of the site (badly in need of updating) hark back to selling rarity photos, which I will still do if asked, although I will often supply them free to individuals...

Gull Lovers Travels  As many people will know, some years ago I  set out to see every species of gull in the world, and, having achieved my goal, wrote an article about it in Birdwatch magazine. The heading is misleading, I don't love gulls, it's a poor attempt at a pun. My reason was that only about six families of birds occur on every continent, and I used it as a focus of where to travel in the world as I had decided that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, having recently re-married and finding Ann to be just as interested as I was. I had already seen two difficult species on Galapagos, Lava and Swallow-tailed, although Ann and I saw Swallow-tailed again about thirty years later, feeding at night using the lights of a cruise ship. Galapagos and Ecuador was my first trip abroad, I had a good job and was able to take holidays whenever I wanted, although in retrospect a little bit more experience of foreign birding could have been worthwhile.  When I made th...