St Helens Birds and Wildlife Gallery: July 2013

Blog Instructions

If you would like to contribute to the blog, please use the contact form on the bottom of the home page, or email sthelensbirds@gmail.com

This is a brief guide to posting on the blog...

What to post and what not to post

You can post about any wildlife – birds, bats, butterflies, moths,
dragonflies, plants, mammals, insects, etc, etc, etc that you want! These
can be in your garden or from anywhere you go as long as you’re in St
Helens. If you see anything interesting out of St Helens (e.g. holidays,
twitches etc) and want to let people know about it you can put it in the out
of area page. (see below)
There’s absolutely no pressure on how often you have to post, don’t worry if
it won’t be regularly.

The only things not to post are the locations of breeding birds and their
nests and in particular Schedule 1 species which are listed here...
http://www.naturenet.net/law/sched1.html

The blog admins may unfortunately have to remove or edit any post which breaks this rule.

If you have any questions regarding what is ok to post, email
sthelensbirds@gmail.co.uk and one of us will help you.

Invites and logging in

•    The blog is in two parts – the main blog (sthelensbirds.blogspot.co.uk)
and the gallery (sthelensbirdsgallery.blogspot.co.uk) so you should have
received two emails inviting you to both blogs.
•    After you’ve received your email invite to the blog, click on the link
in the email and it’ll take you to another screen and say you must log in
with a google account to accept the invitation. Click the link to sign in
and it takes you to a google log in page. If you already have a google
account, you can use that to log in. You can also log in with a google
account that is associated with your other email address i.e. has it as an
alternative or a recovery option. Have a go with your normal email address
but if it doesn’t work, you’ll have to create a google (gmail) account which
only takes a few minutes anyway. You can then click the accept invitation
button. Repeat this process for the other invite. Once you’ve done this you
can then post away!
•    The invite expires after a few days – just request another one if it
expires before you get around to doing it.
Ways to post

•    Once you’re logged in, make sure you’re in the blog/page that you want
to post to (i.e the main blog or the gallery – click Home for the main blog,
Gallery for the....gallery!) The easiest way to post is by going to the blog
and clicking the new post button on the top right of the screen. This will
then take you to the post composition screen with a title box at the top and
then main body of the post underneath. The title would normally be the
location of your sightings. Also, make sure you’ve clicked the Compose
button, rather than the HTML button.
•    If you want to post in the out of area page then click “new post” in
the main blog and write your post as normal. You then need to put “out of
area” in the label box on the right (without the quotes).
•    You can also put pictures in your post by clicking the picture icon
(next to links) at the top of the page. Make sure you own the copyright or
have permission of the owner for any photos you post. You can put photos in
the main blog, but if you have lots of photos, you can put them in the
gallery so that the main blog doesn’t get too crowded with photos.
•    If you have a smart phone, there’s a blogger app that you can use to
check for new posts, compose posts and upload photos.
The Twitter Feed

•    Anyone with a twitter account can tweet to @Sthelensbirds These will
then appear on the blog once re-tweeted.

Posting to the gallery

•    The gallery address is sthelensbirdsgallery.blogspot.com To upload a
photo here, just click the gallery page and the new post link and follow the
instructions above for posting.
•    If you have a flickr or picasa account, you can link it to our gallery
which makes sharing photos really easy – here’s the link to set it up...
http://www.flickr.com/account/sharing/ make sure you link the account to the
gallery page. In flickr, once your accounts are linked, you can then click
on any photo in your photostream, click the little box with an arrow on it
in the bottom right, and then click the blogger icon.
Deleting and editing posts

•    You can edit or delete your own posts by clicking the little pencil
icon next to your post. Don’t worry if you mess something up, it can always
be sorted later!
•    In order to keep the blog consistent and tidy, from time to time it may
be necessary for the blog admins to make small edits to posts, such as
adding post headers. If any large changes are required, the original author
will be contacted first.

There’s probably loads of other stuff we haven’t thought about or come
across yet. Just email sthelensbirds@gmail.co.uk if you need help with
anything or have any suggestions etc.