Tue 16 March 2004 - Unexpected visitors
Tonight
in my garden
in the tree
at the back
THERE ARE BATS!
Probably disenfranchised former Botanic Gardens dwelling flying foxes.
I had been wondering about those things swooping overhead as I put the washing on the line tonight. They didn’t seem like birds. And I knew they weren’t when they started calling to each other.
How inestimably cool.
March 16th, 2004 at 8:58pm
Wow, how cool is that?!! Just trying to catch up as I haven’t visited much over the last couple of weeks.
March 16th, 2004 at 9:12pm
When I’ve gone for a late night walk, I’ve heard them fly overhead, but I’ve never had one in my backyard - That’s wonderful!
March 16th, 2004 at 10:09pm
i thought i had bats one night, they were so noisy and crazy, attacking the palm tree in the back yard. i had to get the kids up to watch them. i think they turned out to be flying foxes though. the kids were still impressed
March 17th, 2004 at 11:53am
Use the flash…..then we could see the Bat.
March 17th, 2004 at 2:03pm
Rat - a flying fox IS a bat.
March 17th, 2004 at 2:19pm
The flash alone did not produce a picture where you could see anything but the eyes. What you see is a result of shining a torch on the tree AND using the flash. It’s perfectly visible if your computer monitor is set at a reasonably bright level, though I make tweak the picture a bit to make it easier to see.
March 17th, 2004 at 2:49pm
Just keep them away from your car. When they crap on the paint it burns through the colour to the grey base coat.
March 17th, 2004 at 2:56pm
They like fig trees. We’ve had them coming in small numbers for several years to the large fig tree in our back yard.
March 17th, 2004 at 4:24pm
Ahhh yes, bat poo - forgot how desctructible that was to my car. Make sure your car is undercover!
March 17th, 2004 at 6:31pm
This has nothing to do with bats, but I thought you might like to know that there is a large Dr. Who-themed chalk drawing on the pavement at Southbank. It’s a couple of hundred metres from the Flinders St walk bridge in the direction of Crown. Pretty cool.
March 17th, 2004 at 9:24pm
There we go gang, I’ve fiddled with the gamma so the bat is more visible.
My car is at the opposite end of the property, quite some way away, thankfully. No batshit for me! In any case, they haven’t shown up tonight.
Matthew… cool, will go look when I get a chance!
March 22nd, 2004 at 11:40pm
Hey Daniel - come up to Brisbane. We have HUNDREDS of bats in our yard each night. They crap on EVERYTHING. They eat ALL the fruit off the trees. They are RODENTS with wings and I am so p^$#ed off that I can’t get rid of them (read shoo them away with a loud bang - like from a gun). Basically anywhere in Brisbane, at night, during summer, look up and you can see MILLIONS of the damn things. Cool if you are in Melbourne - not if you are in Brisbane. Actually I might send you some down in a box……
March 23rd, 2004 at 12:15am
Yo Daniel
We have the same situation at our new apartment (we’re renting out the trailer).
Problem is the wife does NOT think “Way cool!”
Especially as three of them have gotten in since we moved here.
March 23rd, 2004 at 7:54am
I think it’s cool! I love when there are bats in our garden, which is often, but I never see them, and would love to get a photo!!
bloody good at hiding, they are.
March 23rd, 2004 at 7:55am
oh. a photo of the Dr Who pavement painting would be cool