🥁 The results are in from a 3-day poll across 3 social media platforms on what you think of bats 🦇 This is just a scene setter for my new bat project, so it didn't drill down on the detail (my project is looking at insect-eating bats), but there were some great comments shared from a total 138 respondents. Mastodon peeps, you were the most generous - 89 respondents from here alone and wonderful stories and art 🙌🤩 These thoughts and stories will feed into some creative sound art ideas yet to take shape, but if you have any comments you'd like to add beneath this post, they'll be warmly welcomed!

#Bats #Chiroptera #MicroBats #BatEcology #EcoArt #EnvironmentalArt

Recording is now underway for the 🦇 project I'm getting started on, monitoring insect-eating bats. I've been tasked with recording on an off-road bush track. Just as well I have a few of those! I have two AudioMoths on the job until Tuesday, as I've configured my recorder with the same settings as the one provided for this citizen science project, and to cover another section of the track. I'll make the 'who's behind the project' info more public once I know more about how the creative part of this project is going to take shape

And I'm looking for 🦇 stories - more so from people who really don't like them for whatever reason. I'd love to hear why. Message me!

#bats #chiroptera #microbats #BatEcology #EcoArt #EnvironmentalArt #SocialEcology #bioacoustics #AcousticEcology #BatEnvironments #RegionalNSW #RegionalArts #ArtProject #ecopulse #SoundArtist #SoundArt #FieldRecording

I've got a new project starting to take shape that's a little batty 🦇 Well, it's about bats, but I'm not sure exactly what about bats just yet. But, what I do know is that my practice has a process that includes a lot of background reading, research, as well as searching and gathering stories.

I'm starting with this question: Do you have a bat story and how has it shaped your feeling about bats?

It might be a folk tale, a traditional story passed down to you or a contemporary one based on an experience...I have plenty of my own! I'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime, I'm reading, going down rabbit holes, having lots of conversations with people passionate about bats, and thinking back over my own fascination with these creatures, who have surprisingly popped up in my work quite a bit over the years—including more recently through the Regional Futures project.

This image is called 'Vespertilian' (meaning like or relating to bats). It's a 120 x 90cm lightbox image that I created in 2010 from a photograph of a dead bat I found on my driveway. The original work hangs in my bathroom. A few smaller, limited edition versions also made their way into the world as wrapped aluminium prints.

More to come on this new project, but in the meantime, I'd love you to message me if you have a story you'd like to share 🦇

#bats #chiroptera #BatEcology #AcousticEcology #SoundArtist #SoundArt #FieldRecording

So bats are cute yeah?

I give you Hypsignathus monstrosus

I love the collection at the #NaturalHistoryMuseumLondon #mammals #bats #Chiroptera

@Fanua @thecrobe @BlippyTheWonderSlug

Last shot. Another close encounter of a bat flying down the road on its way to work.

#BatsOfMastodon #batstodon

#photography #bats #chiroptera #nature

@Fanua @thecrobe @BlippyTheWonderSlug
Here is the bat v. currawong duel.

A brief explanation: when the bat colony is up-river, the bats routinely fly along the course of the river when leaving and returning. Unfortunately the local Currwongs are extremely territorial, particularly when they're nesting, and the bats sometimes fly too close (for a Currawong that means "within visual range"), and the Currawong proceeds to chase the bat off, screaming insults. In some cases it does more than pursue, it attacks, as seen in this example. Same caveats apply (low light, fast-moving subject, lousy photographer). For the faint-hearted, the bat survived.

Also from a different attack, the bat and currawong flying at street level, just as a pedestrian walks past a life-size plastic giraffe (I kid you not) and zebra in a front yard. Seeing is believing.

[Edit. For reasons known only to itself, autocorrect suffers from Monty Python disease and can't say the letter "c" (what a silly bunt), and changes "currawong" to "burrawong". Fixed. ]

#photography #bats #chiroptera #nature #currawong #birds #fighting

@Fanua @thecrobe @BlippyTheWonderSlug
Ok, as threatened, here are some more #BatsOfMastodon #batstodon

Quality is variable, mostly tending to poor (low light, ISO noise, motion blur, all synonyms for amateur photographer).

However I can promise a few shots you've probably never seen before, one capturing IN ONE FRAME, ladies and gentlemen, a bat, a Currawong, a giraffe, a zebra, a human, and a Bus Zone sign.

Also the Bat v. Currawong aerial duel.

Plus some close encounters of the chiropteric kind.

I'll thread these up.

#photography #bats #chiroptera #nature #currawong #birds #mangroves #nightcliff #BrisbaneRiver

I usually pay a visit to the Lesser Short-nosed Fruit Bats (Cynopterus brachyotis) that roost at the Sungei Buloh Wetland Centre, Singapore. I also sometimes spot a mother with a baby. Taken on 25 Sept 2021.

On iNaturalist [ https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/96054437 ]

#iNaturalist #Nature #Singapore #Photography #Mammals #Mamalia #Bats #Chiroptera