5 Years On!

Five years ago, I was reading an article in the BBC Wildlife Magazine that was promoting a blogging community project. Basically, they were asking anyone who had a nature blog to share it with them on their website. The blogs ranged from wildlife photographers, nature writers and amateur naturalists who were a bit of both. It was at that moment that I wanted to join and start up my own blog. This one! Five years on, I am still at it. Today happens to be the 5th anniversary of this blog and there has been plenty of ups and downs since I wrote my first post that was about robins. Here's pretty much how my rollercoaster of a blogging journey unfold year by year.

In my first year, it was all new and intriguing. I would write up my wildlife experiences and add a few photos in the format of my wildlife diaries  (which you can read about here https://seanspetmonster.blogspot.com/2015/02/my-wildlife-diary-story.html). A few photos soon became lots of photos per blog post as the year went on, further documenting my adventures. During 2015, these adventures included; an encounter with dolphins on a boat trip in Cornwall, seeing my first badgers, a water shrew, a white-winged black tern and a hoopoe, watching a starling murmuration in Norwich, and best of all, being in the audience of Springwatch Unsprung. Alongside my adventures, I also created my How To Draw series, where I did a step by step guide on how to draw various things.

2016 was a big year for me. It was my 30th birthday, my brother got married, my niece was born and Strumpshaw Fen celebrated its 40th anniversary under the RSPB. For the latter, a challenge was set up in which you had to find 40 species at the reserve throughout the year. I managed to spot and photograph all 40, except the weasel, which eluded me for a photo until the following year. To celebrate my birthday that year, I went on a wildlife holiday to France with Naturetrek, seeing many species of orchid, butterfly (including an Apollo butterfly), Alpine marmots, chamois, a marsh warbler and had an unforgettable night encountering a beaver. Back in the UK, I had more memorable encounters with an ermine, a glaucous gull, twite, hornet clearwing moths, a long-staying glossy ibis at Strumpshaw and I witnessed a greylag goose laying an egg!

With success with Strumpshaw's challenge, I decided to do my own challenge in 2017, which involved looking for a variety of interesting invertebrates, including fen raft spiders, emperor moths and grizzled skippers. I also came across a golden pheasant, a black-necked grebe, a red-flanked bluetail, black-winged stilts, a mole and a water vole. In August, I had a great week in Scotland, where I saw my first golden and white-tailed eagles and watched the Highland games at a small village near Loch Ness. However, 2017 wasn't all that great for me as my finances took a dive after the government took my PIP money away from me, leaving me needing a job and on top of that, my camera broke and I had to replace it with a new one.

My problems got worse in 2018 as I ended up deleting many of my photos off my blog by accident after I had ran out of storage space on Google Photos. I spent most of the year bringing them back after buying more storage space. But 2018 wasn't all bad. I saw a purple heron, a Coues's arctic redpoll, a flock of parrot crossbills, a lesser yellowlegs, a king eider, waxwings, a wryneck and spent a few days in London, which included a visit to Kew Gardens and the London Wetland Centre. For me though, 2018 will always be remembered for raising emperor moth caterpillars, which were given to me as a late birthday gift as eggs. It was a lot of fun, but they were quite demanding. It was all worth it though, as the following spring, many of them emerged as adults.

This year, I ran out of storage yet again with Google Photos and it made me rethink of a new strategy of what I do with my blog. Firstly, I deleted one album on Google Photos to free up some space, which is why many of my posts are missing photos (I haven't gotten round to replacing them yet). I now only show a few photos, at least up to three or four per post. But then I ran out of space a third time. I have sorted out the problem for now, but if this happens again, I'm not sure what I'll do. Another problem is that with both parents working and with no licence or car, birdwatching trips are getting few and far between outside of my Strumpshaw shifts. All this has left me quite depressed lately, though I now have a job to occupy me, despite the shifts being unpredictable and at random times. If there had been one positive thing to remember 2019 by, it has to be my Norfolk orchid hunt challenge, in which I found 19 out of 23, plus the military orchid in Suffolk.

So that has been the last five years of my blog. Can I make it another five years? Only time will tell. I hope you have enjoyed my blog even with all the problems I've had. BBC Wildlife Magazine has now since disbanded its blogger project (at least as far as I know). At the end of its first year, the magazine handed out awards for blogger of the year, and though I didn't initially win anything, they did highly recommended my blog among a few others. During the time of their project, I was seeing my viewing figures rise to fairly impressive figures, though each post I did rarely went over the hundred mark (with exceptions with my How To Draw series, which is still being regularly viewed to this day). Now that they disbanded the project, my viewing figures have nosedived to low figures per post, though I've seen a slow, but steady increase in recent weeks. So, if you enjoy my blog, spread the word. It really helps me out, not financially, but mentally. It gives me a reason to continue with what I'm doing. Thank you all for your support. Here's to another five years!