May, 6
Whew… 4hrs of sleep last night. Our fourth night back in the field and it was a fantastic night. We broke all of last year’s records ending up with 44 bats of 6 different species, including one Indiana bat, and one Silver hair… the first Silver hair we’ve seen ever.
Oh ya, there was one Southern flying squirrel in the net too but it was faster than the camera. Now I am going to bed… but the fun has just begun.
Mar, 2
Finally… I just got the ok to release the big news. I’m hiring! I’m in need of a couple of technicians to help with my field work this summer. All the official details are in the PDF file located right here.
In case you missed it you may also want to check out the post below.
Sorry -I couldn’t stop playing with my rubber bat the other night. Lots of fun can happen with a couple of strobes, a blue gel, and a little Photoshop.
But it’s probably not a good thing to forget what the real thing looks like.
I look forward to hearing from YOU!
Jan, 19
Lately I’ve been poking around in the woods with my camera as usual… but I’m not looking for pretty pictures. Graduate courses in wildlife identification are no joke. As part of my class this quarter I have to document the presence of a certain number of species of mammals and birds. It sounds simple enough… until you have all the easy ones and subtract from the number required. Thankfully, the snow has come.
I’m still not sure about this one. But the one below everyone should know.
Only one problem -I still don’t have enough.
Aug, 20
I really haven’t forgotten about this blog; it’s all the fault of the keeled calcar below. (Just to the right of the foot below there is a small bulge in the membrane.)
That small bulge identifies this bat as the endangered Indiana Bat. She has been keeping us very busy the last week or two as we have been trying to keep up with where she’s been roosting, foraging, and how many bats are living with her. We attached a tiny (0.38g) radio telemetry transmitter which lets us follow her movements by radio (you can see a bit of the antenna in the picture). She has been a big help in getting this study off to a good start and hopefully we will have many more bats with transmitters out there soon.
She has been living here in this dead tree along with 8-15 other bats but there’s no telling when she will decide to switch to a different location. I actually found her snoozing under a bridge in the middle of the night on Friday. She left before I was able to snap a picture but there was another bat hanging out just barely visible in the picture below.
Finally, here is a picture of her face so you can see that bats aren’t really all that scary after all and how we should really be thankful for having them rid our world of tons of excess bugs while we sleep.
Copyright © 2012 Andrew B. Kniowski. • Disclaimer