Buh-bye Lava Beds, hello caribbean

Silver-haired bat Originally uploaded by unquenchable.fire

Sadly the fun is over at the BCI acoustic monitoring class and I'm back in San Francisco. After about 12 hours of sleep I feel almost normal. Our last night batting at Lava Beds was such a delight. We were in an area where the Ponderosa pine forest was beginning, so there were lots of trees but still some sage scrub between the groups of trees. The weather was cool but not cold and the skies full of stars. After exploring the area, we all stood in a clearing between the trees as the bats were released one by one with their tiny glow sticks. Many were very cooperative, hanging around to give us lots of great recordings. Some even returned, so there were sometimes two or three little magical fairy lights dancing among the treetops. Altogether for the class we had about 12 different species of bats and one of the star attractions was this darling little Silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) whose voice is way bigger than its size would lead you to believe. Tonight I leave for my next adventure, doing a survey of bats on two caribbean islands, St. Lucia and Montserrat. I'll post an update after my return.