Bats!

One of the benefits of this gig is that you can pretty much tag along to any of the biological courses or studies happening here. Now, I am clearly not a biologist. But living things are pretty great, and learning about stuff is groovy. I tell ya, this dabbling in random specialties really fits well with my generalist tendencies.

So, the "bat people" (formally known as Bat Conservation International) were here this past week. I heard a lot about them before they arrived and expected a bunch of hollow-eyed, pale nerds. They were actually quite normal. Too bad. So much less interesting... I was still intrigued, though, and drawn to their odd lifestyle. Birders get up at 5am to get their worms, whereas the bat people stay up late, drink lots of coffee, and don't start work until sunset. My kind of people.

And, heck - it's not every day you get to see a bat up close.

So I asked to tag along to their evening of catching and identifying. Before you know it, there I was hopping across a creek helping them put up giant "mist nets" to catch the little guys. I wasn't able to handle any of them as I don't have my rabies shot, but I got to watch and learn. Aside from ingesting literally a mouthful of small bugs while setting up the harp trap, it was amazing.

The first ones I saw were cute and much smaller than I would have imagined:

Measuring this bat's tragus

Here is one of the course participants handling what I think is a Brown Bat. She seems to suspect it might have "that furious stuff", a type of rabies. Shiver. And listen to the clicking.



Then I was asked to take a bat over to the fun folk from USDA who were there taking saliva and blood samples for a rabies study. Once the bats were measured and weighed by BCI students, they were put in an opaque bag and hung in trees while waiting to be transported. They tend to hang out there upside down pretty peacefully until moved. I went to carry one to the research picnic table and had my first listen to the chilling sound of the Hoary:



I was never afraid of bats before, but felt I might be by the time the night was over.

One hoary got caught in the net and was really freaking out. As you can see I wasn't the only jumpy one:

Considering the woman in the right of the this video practically got her finger eaten off and went through a varied array of profanities when taking one off the net earlier, it's clear this is not a popular bat. Even for apprentice bat people.

Here's a better look at the fellow (note the fangs):



(I have to admit, I struggled a wee bit with seeing the little guys getting caught, manhandled and being so distressed. A lot of the studies here require capture and it freaks out the animals - I am not entirely comfortable with the idea, but will try and look at it through the eyes of a biologist. The intention is ultimately to maintain and protect populations as well as monitoring things like rabies and other things that can affect us as well.)

It was late when I got back five hours later and I was tired, but the adrenaline was flowing. What an amazing opportunity! I never ever thought I would do anything like it. To my delight, one of the instructors said I was very handy with the nets and told me to look him up once I got my rabies shots. Well, this could have been the worst pick-up line of all time as far as I know, but if not, maybe I'll consider a career as a bat conservationism...

Unlikely, but new bat people are back next week and I'm excited to go out in the field again. Bats are way cooler than birds. And the t-shirts are better too.