Last night I missed a wonderful photo opportunity.
My wife had just gone to bed when I heard her call out that there was
a bat in the room. She unreasonably wanted me to drop what I was
doing and 'deal' with it.
I went into the darkened room and asked if she was sure there was a
bat. Just then I felt/heard a fluttering in the air just near me.
Score one to the wife - who at this time was hiding under the
doona/quilt/eiderdown issuing muffled demands for me to do something
about it.
I turned on the light and watched fascinated as the bat circled the
room flying very close to me and other objects in the room without
touching them - fantastic.
For some reason my wife didn't seem to share my interest or
enthusiasm - strange.
I noticed the bat headed for the doorway I was standing in a couple
of times but veered away because it heard me standing in it. I went
into the kitchen and waited. Shortly the bat flew through the
doorway and started to quarter the room but before I could move to
shut the door it flew back into the bedroom. My wife let me know she
had noticed this also.
I waited a few moments and sure enough it flew back through the
doorway so I stepped into the doorway and closed the door. The bat
flew back towards me a couple of times but turned away at the last
moment - Its idea of playing chicken perhaps ?
It really was something to see. The bat did not just fly around madly
in a panic bumping into things the way a bird would. It seemed much
more intelligent and flew at various altitudes in the room as if
purposefully searching the whole volume of the room for an exit.
I opened a door to the outside and the bat continued to fly around
then it disappeared behind a counter then a moment later it rounded
the end of the counter at just about floor height and went straight
out the door.
Oly content ? - there was none darn it!
I should have calmly opened the pelican, extracted the 4Ti and the
T32, found four batteries and loaded the T32 and then assembled the
bits, set a small aperture for depth of field and taken a few shots.
I actually did think of it at the time but I was not sure my wife
would have appreciated my dallying, but mostly I was concerned that I
might frighten the bat with the flash and make it harder to
'persuade' it to calmly exit.
It made a nice change from ticks and midges and was easier to remove
than one I encountered a few years ago that was asleep and hanging
upside down on the bedroom wall.
Giles
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