I was going to call this post 'The 100 Club' in honour of the fact that we reached 100 pledgers last night. And then a pledge came in early this morning, so I changed it to the 101 Club, and quite literally as I was doing that two more came in, and then a bit later another one, so I gave up.
Anyway, if you're reading this you're a member of the Hundred And Something Club, an exclusive group consisting of the first hundred and whatever-we’ve-reached-by-the-time-this-post-is-published people to support Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear?. I’m thinking of having T-shirts made.
To new members I say ‘Welcome’ and ‘All hail'. You’ve taken a leap of faith and supported an idea, something that doesn’t exist yet except in the darkest recesses of my fevered brain. My gratitude genuinely knows no bounds.
You may be wondering what happens next. You’ve done your bit. When will you get your book?
Not just yet, I’m afraid. For the moment all you need do is sit back and wait while I go out and about, watching birds and writing about them.
The birdwatching part of this project runs until December 31st. Imagine me, tramping across a marsh somewhere at dusk on that day, knee-deep in mud and with rain dripping down my collar, cursing my own idiocy for having had this stupid idea, but determined to find a scrubby little brown bird which will take me to my target of 200 but which, blissfully unaware of my existence, has buggered off to the Scilly Isles half an hour earlier.
Whatever the outcome, I will then write and write and write. I have in fact written a fair amount already, mostly in the form of notes jotted during and after my various birding trips. The little black book I use ‘in the field’ is full of indecipherable scrawls. Last week, for example, I appear to have seen a camera gorse and a mule swat.
The finished product will appear later in 2017. I’ll keep you updated at every step of the way. You need do nothing.
Well, almost nothing.
The completion of the process does depend on our reaching the funding target, and while you have more than done your bit already, I’d be enormously grateful if you were to spread the word by any means at your disposal: social media, leaning out of the window and shouting, stopping passersby and asking them if they’ve pledged and if not why not and then shaking them until the money leaps out of their pockets and into the Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? bucket you carry about your person specially for such an occasion. That kind of thing.
Or you may prefer to sit back in the comfort of one of the shed’s luxurious beanbags and have a nap.
Whichever you choose, here’s a photo of a wren, taken today. Rarely for a bird in my company, he failed to disappear, so I thought it would be rude not to preserve the moment for posterity. I hope you enjoy him as much as I did.
