Post 400

Dendroctonus sp., © Eric R. Eaton

I can hardly believe I have reached this milestone of a 400th post on this blog. When I started way back in February of 2009, I faced many unknowns. Would I have the discipline to write regularly? Would anyone read the posts? Back then, I knew nothing of social media, and hadn’t even started taking my own images.

There have been many life changes along the way, too. I became unemployed, employed irregularly and temporarily, and am now unemployed again. I met a wonderful woman, moved to her city, got married, and combined households. I have traveled fairly extensively, accruing images as I go.

My major goal in creating a blog was to help educate the general public about insects, arachnids, and other arthropods. I am still unsure if I am only “preaching to the choir,” but Facebook (and now Twitter) have helped extend the reach of this blog. As of yesterday, I was ranked number seven for invertebrate blogs on the Nature Blog Network (and #83 for all blog subjects).

What of the future of this blog? Expect it to continue. Do not expect me to move to WordPress. I find the interface to be horrible for me as a writer. I know this means you cannot easily view the blog on mobile devices; I know some complain that they cannot post comments. My apologies for that, but these are problems with Blogger, not me. Why they are not more responsive is beyond my comprehension.

You can expect more, and more frequent, content during the winter months when I am traveling less and spending less time in the field. You can always make requests for blog topics. I will gladly research and write about the subject you wish to know about, provided I have images, or you have some you can share to illustrate the topic.

“Spider Sunday,” “Moth Monday,” “True Bug Tuesday,” “Wasp Wednesday,” “OrThoptera Thursday,” and “Fly Day Friday” will continue to be irregular features, with a total of roughly two or three blog posts made each week. Whenever possible, I want to include images of the immature stages, especially for moths, but I have few identified caterpillar images of my own at present, perhaps even fewer that correspond to my images of moths.

So, this blog will continue, but is subject to change depending on what you, the audience, wants out of it. I welcome your suggestions, criticisms, and complaints, as always. Feel free to e-mail me if you cannot comment directly. Thank you. BugEric24ATyahooDOTcom.