Giles wrote:
>
> 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
>
Awright Giles! What fun. Good thing the wife has a sense of humor! She
did laugh, didn't she?? <g> BTW, next time this happens (yeah, sure)
might reach for the F280 instead for the potentially faster shutter
speed. 1/60th may not do the trick for the bat, especially wings, I
think. Any other thoughts on this?
Speaking of potential OM moments and bats and frogs and snakes etc. My
10 year old daughter and my wife caught a spider in the house the other
nite in a screened-in bug can. We thought it looked like a brown recluse
(the most poisonous spider in the US, to my knowledge.) Since I was on
the net anyway (probably flaming the guy with the C***n website!) I did
a search and came up with a couple of photos of brown recluse and darned
if they didn't look like our guy! Uh Oh. We decided we should get it
identified cause where there's one ... So the 2 gals took it to the
kitchen to transfer it to a glass jar with a lid, cause the screen can
it was in was not escape-proof. Next thing I hear is "crash, bang, 'get
it Mom, stomp it'" Then silence. Then my wifes' voice saying "Identify
THIS!" Oh well, seems the little bugger tried to escape and became part
of the kitchen counter, so we'll never know.
OM content: I was going to do a 2X macro shot of it thru the glass jar
with my 80F/4 macro. Now, it just would look like a tea stain!
george :>)
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