Could anyone with copies of IE7 and/or IE6 please check to see whether something is working?
The menu on the right is supposed to move up and down as you scroll the window. If I’ve done it right, it should still look the same in Firefox, Opera etc; but in Internet Explorer, it should start in the same position but not move when you scroll the window.
Thanks in advance.
I just got around to testing the new design on Internet Explorer via browsershots, and what do you know, it’s completely fucked up. And for most versions of IE I got an error message; I don’t know what that’s about.
It’s so bloody irritating; why can’t all the various browsers agree on how to render simple CSS? And of course it’s not very convenient for me to try and fix the problem without access to a Windows machine.
Anyway, if you’re looking at the site on Internet Explorer and it looks kind of broken: sorry. I’ll try and fix it.
grumble grumble.
I’m in the process of changing stuff around on the site: you may encounter occasional weirdness.
EDIT: OK, the tweaking process is still going to be ongoing for a little longer and some things aren’t finished, but the new design is now basically live. This is more or less how I want it to look.
I’m itching to do yet another site redesign—I have a pretty good idea of what I want and a working test version of it, allowing for a bit of tweaking—but I think it makes sense to wait until the release of WordPress 2.3 so I don’t have to worry about any compatibility issues. I’m considering losing the theme switcher, as well; since I make no effort to make changes to the site backwards-compatible, it’s probably better that way. And it’ll make it easier to rework things for my ultra-minimalist new look.
Of course the whole thing is increasingly irrelevant, since a growing proportion of my (diminishing number of) readers are now accessing HF through feed readers and may never see the design at all. But I enjoy the process.
I’m also intending to start a photoblog. I’ve always liked the idea of photography but found the results slightly disappointing. As a birder I know well the importance of good optical equipment; the difference between a cheap pair of binoculars and an expensive pair can be profound. I never bought a film SLR camera because I didn’t think I would get the use out of it to justify it; now with digital, knowing I can go out and shoot 50 or 60 and discard them all, it seems like a good moment to make a serious attempt to take some good photographs. So the photoblog will be part of that attempt; recording my learning process. But I can’t decide on a name for it. I could keep up the G.M. Hopkins theme and go for something like ‘Plough Down Sillion’ or ‘Shook Foil’ or ‘Finches’ Wings’, but I think I fancy a change. Hmmm. We’ll see.
Apologies for the slight messiness: I’ve just upgraded to WordPress 2.2—don’t know why, really, it’s not like there are any compelling new features—and at least one of my normal plugins is broken. I should have a work-around up soon.
EDIT: OK, I think everything’s just about working now. If anything seems broken, give me a shout.
Further comment: One of the claims for WP2.2 is that “We now protect you from activating a plugin or editing a file that will break your blog.” Who knows, perhaps this is brilliant, sometimes. But it didn’t work for me today.
And another comment: One of the changes is that instead of having a built-in preview in the posting window that has to be reloaded every time you save a change, it pops up a preview in a new window when you ask it to. Which is probably a good decision, since it should make writing faster, but it’s a pity it makes a new window each time instead of reloading the previous preview window with the new version. if I don’t carefully close each popped-up preview after looking at it, I end up with a whole row of tabs, each a preview of the post.
The last of the three locations in Crete that I bio-blitzed was the Lasithi plateau, where I was from the 27th-28th of April. The plateau is just the prettiest place in the world, as well as providing some good birding for me. Apparently, it’s formed by the build-up of silt from the surrounding rivers creating a little flat fertile area high in the mountains. It’s like someone has taken a little slice of Holland nine kilometres by five and placed it 840m up in the middle of Crete. It even has windmills—little ones for pumping water, since although it floods in winter, in summer it gets dry enough to need irrigation.
Spring was a bit less advanced here; whereas on the south coast the flowers were looking a bit sun-blasted, here they were absolutely amazing. Real alpine meadow stuff anywhere there was enough room for it; higher up the mountain, where it got really rocky, lots of tiny little flowers growing amid the rocks. I was particularly pleased to find about 7 species of orchid.
Which makes it slightly embarrassing to admit that I didn’t actually blitz the flowers; I did have a couple of flower books with me with that in mind, but I found I was only able to ID such a small proportion of them to the species level that my list would have been seriously unrepresentative. So I’ve just got a bird list. The bird I was most pleased with was Wryneck, but there were lots of good things. The list appears below, but first, a selection of photos. The first three (the wheatear, lark and warbler) weren’t actually taken on the plateau, but they were at least taken while I was in Crete.
You can either navigate using the strip at the bottom or just click on the photo to see the next one in the set.
Common Kestrel
Peregrine Falcon
Eurasian Griffon Vulture
Common Buzzard
Common Quail
Yellow-legged Gull
Eurasian Collared Dove
Woodpigeon
Common Cuckoo
Eurasian Wryneck
Crested Lark
Woodlark
Barn Swallow
Tree Pipit
Yellow Wagtail
Common Blackbird
Sardinian Warbler
Great Reed Warbler
Spotted Flycatcher
Blue Rock-Thrush
European Stonechat
Whinchat
Northern Wheatear
Black-eared Wheatear
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Woodchat Shrike
Common Raven
Hooded Crow
Eurasian Jay
House Sparrow
Linnet
European Goldfinch
European Greenfinch
Chaffinch
European Serin
Corn Bunting
Cirl Bunting
That barn owl bio blitz button is derived from a photo on Flickr by Nick Lawes used under a by-nc-sa licence; the button is available under the same licence. Not that there’s anything wrong with the Jennifer’s BBB buttons, but I wanted something to match my colour scheme.