{"id":2388,"date":"2017-11-11T12:09:48","date_gmt":"2017-11-11T12:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/?p=2388"},"modified":"2017-11-11T12:09:48","modified_gmt":"2017-11-11T12:09:48","slug":"flying-foxes-at-wolli-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/?p=2388","title":{"rendered":"Flying Foxes at Wolli Creek"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I showed up in Sydney wanting to see the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grey-headed_flying_fox\">flying foxes<\/a> that lived in the Botanical Gardens, but it turns out that they&#8217;ve been driven out in recent years (I guess because all of those tiny feet were wearing out the trees).  So as a back-up, J and I took a taxi out to Wolli Creek where there has been a sometimes-seasonal sometimes-year-round bat camp. (Apparently a group of bats is called a &#8216;camp,&#8217; at least if you&#8217;re in Australia.)<\/p>\n<p>There were lots!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bats at Wolli creek\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EROmnX3F-h0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a bat that decided to roost, briefly, right over our heads:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"grey-headed flying fox, lift-off\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E8tI2bufsKQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here is them just starting to wake up and (presumably) chatting about how they&#8217;ll spend the night:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Resting bats\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EFJS3DOk8Mc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s a video of them bathing\/drinking\/cooling off before they set out for the night:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"bathing bats\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u7d8WgRMgwk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I tried to take some high-speed footage which isn&#8217;t in great focus but is spooky (and has spooky audio to match):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"slowmo bats\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nXQ4frvkjto?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>These are grey-headed flying foxes.  For Minnesota reference, the big ones have a wingspan about like a Cooper&#8217;s hawk (or an extra-large crow) and weigh about twice as much.  This time last year they counted 24,000 at this site, which is basically just a patch of woods between two suburbs and behind a train station.  Even given all-night flight I don&#8217;t at all understand how there&#8217;s enough food around to support ton after ton of high-metabolism bat meat.<\/p>\n<p>If we&#8217;d arrived at dusk then they would have been impossible to miss, but finding the resting bats in the afternoon based on googled anecdotes was a bit of trouble, so for future googlers here&#8217;s a capture of our cab ride, walk, and train trip:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-11-at-10.48.02-PM-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-11-at-10.48.02-PM-1-1024x723.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"452\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-2393\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-11-at-10.48.02-PM-1-1024x723.png 1024w, https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-11-at-10.48.02-PM-1-300x212.png 300w, https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-11-at-10.48.02-PM-1-768x542.png 768w, https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-11-at-10.48.02-PM-1.png 1488w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You can tell that we (and our generous cab driver) spent a while trying to find a way into the park and then a while longer thinking that we were in the wrong place until we got advice from a helpful jogger.  In retrospect the directions are simple:  Take the train to Turella station, walk past the big Laser Tag arena and across the creek, head left on the jogging path until you get to the river, and the look across the river.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I showed up in Sydney wanting to see the flying foxes that lived in the Botanical Gardens, but it turns out that they&#8217;ve been driven out in recent years (I guess because all of those tiny feet were wearing out &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/?p=2388\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critters","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2388"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2397,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions\/2397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}