GOING WILD

A new suite of subscriber benefits to celebrate Chasing Nature's first year

Great Egret / © Bryan Pfeiffer

IN ONLY A YEAR together here at Chasing Nature, you and I have explored the fertile terrain of birds and butterflies, climate and extinction, whales and orchids, war and sex, and many other ideas about wildlife, wild places, and the human condition. 

And we’re just getting started.

As Chasing Nature turns one year old, a mere fledgling on Substack, I’m rolling out new features for subscribers — all 4,364 of you, a community growing every day. But first let’s celebrate and reflect briefly on this past year, basically to reveal what I’ve learned about:

• You (and gratitude).

• Me (as a biologist and writer).

• Us (and what’s next: a feature called GO WILD).

Once we’re done with that, I’ll return to writing the usual dispatches about — oh, you know — ducks now courting in the frigid waters of the north Atlantic or moths mating on the shortest day of the year. We’ll also have our little talk about “seagulls."

You

No disrespect, but here’s a cliché: If not for you Chasing Nature would no longer exist. I’d be outside more often watching those moths mating and ducks doing it. You have become my professional inspiration, my third act. You are most of the reasons I write (and how I earn my modest income). So, for your time and attention, which are among our most precious of personal effects, I am ever grateful.  

During its first year, Chasing Nature has drawn subscribers from 86 countries and 50 U.S. states, including many in the Northeast and far West, and abroad mostly from the United Kingdom and Canada. Based on your Substack profiles, you are creative, earthy, motivated, and curious.

Even though I have written for publications with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, I much prefer to write for you because you are here with purpose. On Substack, we are the algorithm. Which is why I lose sleep over what I write for you. Your time and attention mean that much to me.

Me

To be sure, I’m the scientist (and boy explorer) with binoculars and an insect net, a pencil and a notebook, a laptop and a platform (and an ego). So, yeah, Chasing Nature is in part about me. But it’s more so about all of us: what it means to be human and aware in the natural world (and in an unnatural world). 

Although I surely exist in these essays (at the very least as an exuberant observer), I try not to be waving my arms around and calling attention to myself. Rather than speak for nature, I would rather let nature speak for itself through me. That is my aspiration (and source of sleeplessness, which is fine by the way).

And which is why you may not know a few other things about me beyond my bio in the About page — that I’m a capricious vegan trying his best, a fan of Major League Baseball (Detroit Tigers), and not very good at my meditation practice. When I die, if I do not end up in a bog for eternity I wouldn’t mind meeting up with my dog Odin and all of the people I love at this place:

Us (Going Wild)

The second season of Chasing Nature begins with a new feature called Go Wild — a portal to help bring you closer to the natural world no matter where you live. By way of gratitude, Go Wild’s greatest perks are available only to the paying subscribers who help make it all happen for us on Substack. Thanks for being here. At Go Wild you’ll find:

• THE CLASSROOM — Our “homeroom” where paying subscribers will find my online video seminars (including a nature photography seminar for people with ordinary cameras) and upcoming video talks on bird identification, insect appreciation, and other ways of being in nature.

• SIGHTINGS — Maps and other resources to help paying subscribers find their way to the owls, orchids, and other wild things I’m writing about.

• THE CHASING NATURE ADVENTURE — The next best thing to our being together outdoors. Paying subscribers will be able to share their photo-observations from nature at the amazing iNaturalist platform, where I and other experts can help with identifications.

• ECO RESOURCES — For every subscriber, free and paying alike, my recommendations on field guides, cameras and other optics, and apps to help you discover what’s wild or not so wild out there.

• THE INDEX — Every dispatch on Chasing Nature indexed by organism or topic.

Finally, I’ve knocked some holes in the paywall. Most every post on Chasing Nature will now be published gratis. Don’t be mistaken: Writing is hard. It chains me to a glowing screen and can ruin a good walk (or be the reason for one). It pays me at an hourly rate somewhere in the high one figure or low two figures. And yet I would bear far worse in order to keep writing.

From what I can tell, most of my paying subscribers recognize this — and pay the voluntary subscription fee to help me and Chasing Nature carry on. (It is the reason I myself at various times support a dozen or so Substack writers with paid subscriptions, regardless of extra benefits.) So, beyond an extra dispatch now and then, I’m now offering paying subscribers more ways to experience nature. Please let me know what you think.

As I say in my the About page, nature writing is somewhat a fraud: it’s never as good as actual nature, which, after all, knows nothing of pandemics and warfare, joy and wonder, social media and societal decay. But we know. We occupy that fertile terrain — our wildland of ideas, where I hope you and I will continue to meet in Chasing Nature’s second season.

If you’ll keep reading — and subscribing in whatever way you can — I’ll keep writing.

With gratitude,

-Bryan

Your paid subscription sustains me and Chasing Nature
for a second year and gets you the new Go Wild perks.
I’m also donating 10 percent of all subscription fees this month
to conservation and humanitarian support organizations.
Thanks!

Next Week: Getting Gulls

Bonaparte’s Gull / © Bryan Pfeiffer

I have the audacity to begin a lecture series on wildlife observation with a one-hour presentation on gulls. Yeah, gulls (which some people call seagulls). By any name, they are smart, brutish, elegant, audacious, and many other things. And if you let them in, gulls will change your life (sorta-maybe). Watch for a post and, for paying subscribers, the online presentation at our Go Wild Classroom.

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