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 as a JPEG file. I still have a few photos published in magazines, often they are old rarities. Trip reports are a feature, but unlike many, they are illustrated accounts rather than lists of birds seen. As I'm not a photographer, but a birder with a camera, the standard of the photos is varied, especially as many were taken on film and are digitised copies. Every photo on the site, except for a handful, were taken by me, and there are a few paintings where I was unable to get a shot.

The main part of the site is dedicated to photos, especially waders, seabirds and wildfowl, and as Ann and I have visited every continent it got me thinking about my favourites from each one. An impossible choice, but I've illustrated the top three from each, which will probably change next week, as will my favourite continent. I've also added an island "continent", covering many islands which are nowhere near any land masses, although technically part of a continent which may be miles away.









 I have tried to make the site responsive, but it really needs viewing on a tablet,  laptop or larger, whilst some of it will load on phones, it is very time-consuming as there are so many photos. If looking for a particular species there is a search on the homepage. I know next to nothing about optimisation, but if you can't remember aabirdpix.com, put "Alan Tate bird" in to Google, it comes up number one. Other search engines may put it lower, but it's usually on the first page. 

Lastly, I supply a number of photos to a website run by a French lady, Nicole, whilst her site is information based it gives far more facts about the birds than mine, and I intend putting links in where relevant about the more interesting species. The site is at https://www.oiseaux-birds.com/

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