Well, as I predicted, there were fewer entrants into The Bat Book giveaway … 40 compared to the 120 who entered the hedgehog competition. But that is still a very reasonable measure of love for these amazing creatures.

As usual, if you want to comment or see more pictures, please pop over to the Substack version, thanks.

So here was the question …

But my favourite thing - was discovering how many words into the book, ignoring chapter titles, I got before I mentioned hedgehogs!!! And that is the question you need to answer!

I thought my question was so simple and I even gifted the answer in the next picture. But you lot - you had to be, well, accurate … and while there were a few saying it was the 12th word - but most hedged your bets and said, 11 words until … the 12th word being hedgehogs … and then, there had to be one, took it to another level … Pete Fraser wrote:

“hedgehogs is the 58th word including title page and dedications, but excluding contents (which are chapter headings)”

Well, the same as before - I numbered the answers, 1-40, and then asked the interweb to randomly choose two numbers … and those numbers were, 4, and 23, which means the winners of a signed copy of The Bat Book are …

Brian Stabler

and

Jane Kirkwood

Please message me with your postal addresses and I will get copies in the post to you as soon as possible. Oh, and if you feel the urge to write (nice?) reviews on websites that take reviews … for any of my books for that matter, thank you!

For those who did not win - and everyone else - here are a couple more glimpses into the world of bats … (really sorry - these are only viewable on the Substack version)

It is a shame we have none of the flying foxes or fruit bats here - they are such spectacular animals. Though you can see some in zoos - here is a not very good photograph (sorry to change.org readers) from Shepreth Wildlife Park that I took recently, after performing my role as Patron of the Shepreth Wildlife Conservation Charity.

Back to normal business next time - no more books to give away for quite a while … deadline for current book is March 2027! And time to that is being eroded by the need to earn a living - this time of year I am lucky enough to pick up quite a few photo jobs for the amazing Oxford Festival of the Arts - snapping exhibitions and concerts. I will also be talking at the festival on July 12th - you can grab that before running around the corner (alongside me!) to see Philip Pullman!