Wildlife Force

On my morning commute, I pass through the centre of the city of Nottingham where I collect a free copy of Metro. Reading the newspaper helps pass the time on route to the biology department of the university where I work. Mostly the paper is pretty dire but it does host a small section centred on environmental topics. A couple weeks ago, there was a short piece on the Wildlife Force webcam project based in the Amazon rainforest. Being recommended by David Attenborough I figured the website had to worth a look.

Now, I've seen a few hummingbirds around a feeder at a friends house in Minneapolis, but down there in the Amazon they get ten or twenty at a time, at least! It's amazing. I was so impressed by the project that also looks at reforestation at the Buenaventura reserve, funded by World Land Trust, that I was inspired to respond to the Get Involved message on the website.

Being one for accessible website design I first offered a few technical suggestions to the folks running the project.... things like avoiding scrolling divs (You techy people will know what I'm talking about.). Anyway, in the end, rather than just offer advice, I thought I'd put my money where my mouth is. I offered to rewrite the CSS and some of the HTML for the site. It took me a little longer than I thought it might - no surprise there - but in the end the site ended up working more or less the same across the browsers and validating with W3C. Hopefully my aim to help the website provide better access will support further success in the project.

Go take a look if not to support the project then at least because it's just plain fascinating.... did you ever see so many hummingbirds in such close quarters!?