Hi Liz - sounds like you've become a victim of your own success
First off, the website design looks fine to me and truly believe that most visitors are interested in content above aesthetics.
In terms of photos, I think there are a couple of more options that you might want to consider. These are both made on the assumption that recorders contribute their photos because they want them to be seen. In fact, I believe that this encourages not only the recorder to carry on recording (thanks to the kudos they get by having a photo published), but also encourages others to do the same. The inclusion of photos makes quite a difference, I believe, to the appeal of a sightings page, even though (as Roger rightly states) the image doesn't usually provide valuable information.
We had a similar problem in the Hampshire and IOW branch since it would take an age to resize photos, create both thumbnails as well as main images, and then incorporate these onto the sightings page. And so I sat down with Robin Turner (the webmaster) and eventually came up with a mechanism whereby:
a) recorders can submit their sightings in a form that results in the records going straight into a database.
b) recorders can add up to 3 photos to go along with their sighting, and these automatically get resized and thumbnails created.
c) the HTML code required by the sightings page is automatically created (including links to the images).
d) the information in the database can be automatically exported as a spreadsheet that can then be brought into MapMate.
I suggested such a mechanism to BC HQ over a year ago (that UKB would be happy to host) - for general purpose use by all branches, but it seems that there are aspirations for a nationwide recording mechanism (along the lines of Dutch BC) - although these have not yet come to fruition (and I'm not sure what plans there are) - and HQ didn't want to confuse recorders with an interim mechanism. I brought it up because I was frustrated at wandering around a certain patch on the Hants / Berks / Wiltshire border and having to visit 3 websites to send in my sightings!
Another option, if you have photoshop, is to use its facilities to take a bunch of photos and automatically create a "web photo gallery" that can then be posted on your website.
Another option, if you want it, is for me to create a county-specific gallery on UK Butterflies that recorders can upload their photos to (much as they would upload to Flickr). You then simply have to include a link to any image or gallery page.
Hope this helps! Happy to discuss on the phone if that's easier.
Cheers,
- Pete