Today marks the 1st anniversary of Biodiversity in Focus entering the blogosphere, so I thought I’d take some time to reflect back on the year.
From a personal perspective, this year has been huge: I got married; I became an uncle; we brought home a puppy to annoy our cat (both of whom will hopefully sit for a few photo sessions this winter to demonstrate lighting); and I defended my MSc I made great strides towards finishing my thesis (I should be ready to defend “soon” I swear)…
Professionally, I visited the USNM (aka the Smithsonian Museum) in Washington DC; collected flies and presented my research in Costa Rica; road tripped through Central Ontario searching for wasp colonies; attended the ESO annual general meeting in Grand Bend (I’m a little behind on my blogging, but I’ll be doing some retroactive posts soon); and submitted two papers for publication (watch for posts on these in the near future hopefully).
But enough about me, what happened here in the virtual world? The blog was visited by 2,769 people, combining for more than 12,000 hits. That’s a lot of people interested in insects, and pretty sobering that I’ve reached out in some way to that many individuals in my first year! People all over the world have visited my blog, with 89 countries (!!!) finding their way here. I’ve had hits from all 10 Canadian provinces (but none from the territories) and from all 50 United States (with Illinois leading the way).
No visitors from Mongolia or North Korea? Hmm....
I’ve written about all sorts of things (95 posts so far including this one), but my most popular posts include my phylogeny of insect blogs (672 hits), my review of the Heath River Wildlife Center in Peru (315 hits), and my post on colourful wing interference patterns (259 hits). I’ve live-blogged scientific controversy, explored x-ray fly porn, and celebrated Ento-Ween.
As for photography, I haven’t had as much time to shoot as I’d like (is there ever enough though?), but I had 2.5 great weeks in Costa Rica and a few other chances over the course of the year. Here are some of my favourite photos from the year (click to enlarge):
Fly Photo
Calosphen sp.
Non-Fly Insect Photo
Pale Green Weevil - Polydrusus impressifrons
Non-Insect Arthropod Photo
Wandering Spider - Ctenidae
Non-Arthropod Invertebrate Photo
Hammerhead flatworm - Bipalium adventitium
Vertebrate Photo
White Headed Capuchin
Gourd Photo
A true SCARE-ab Beetle
Well, that pretty much rounds out my first year of blogging. Before we start year number 2, I’d like to thank each of you for taking the time to visit my blog! As a small token of my gratitude, here’s a desktop wallpaper of one of my other favourite photos. Choose your monitor resolution, expand image, right click and choose “Set as Desktop Background”!
1280×800 – Download
1024×768 – Download
1680×1050 – Download
1440×900 – Download
Thanks for a great first year, and I’m looking forward to all that the coming year has in store!
Congratulations on the first anniversary! Those are awesome pictures! Keep up the good work.
Thanks Ani!
Congratulations, Morgan! One year down, many more to go.
Your photography is captivating and beautiful! I’m especially fond of the stilt-legged fly in that classic waving-front-legs pose. Something about those insects fascinates me.
Thanks Jason! The micropezids are certainly my favourite as well, although I may be biased…
A nice first-year wrap-up – congratulations!
My top picks – the wandering spider for the photos, and phylogeny of insect blogs for the posts (still one of the most ingenious posts I’ve ever seen!).
Thanks Ted! I’m looking forward to much more this year, including an update to the phylogeny!
I’m a new-comer to your site but can I just say how great it is. The pics are out of this world!
This is a bit cheeky but I wanted to tell you (and your readers) about a 3 year project we’re running in the UK called Plants for Bugs. We’re essentially looking at the influence of different planting shemes (from British natives to exotics) on invertebrates. If you’d care to take a look at our webpages and my blog, I’d welcome some feedback – visit http://www.rhs.org.uk/plants4bugs
From across the pond,
Helen
Hi Helen, thanks for stopping by! The project you’re working on looks like quite the undertaking, and I imagine you’re finding all sorts of cool insects on your plots. I’ve added your website/blog to the links on the right, good luck with your research and I hope the word spreads further about your work!
Hey, that’s great Morgan – thanks for adding us to the links. Perhaps our most unusual find is the Wood Cricket (Nemobius sylvestris) which is nationally rare but does seem to like to hang out around the RHS Garden at Wisley in Surrey (where I work). With two more years of sampling we’ve a lot more sorting and idents to come so who knows what will turn up!