Good Bye Little Pup! Live Long & Fly High!
Oh sweet pup! It was so great seeing you grow up!
All the best in your new life!
Wild & Free!
Oh sweet pup! It was so great seeing you grow up!
All the best in your new life!
Wild & Free!
It’s a good day to be a bat!
Thanks for all the good wishes, everyone! We’re doing ok. The trees are still standing, although they looked as if they were in a washing machine for the last few days. The pups are doing fine. They seem to prefer their leaf umbrellas to the covered areas to which we continue to bring them. When they do fly, they get buffeted by the strong gusts and soon land, but they needed to learn about all this. The adults that shelter under leaves stay fluffed out, while the pups get wet and stay soaked, so it must be a learned behavior to shake off the rain and stay warm. We still have four more days of rain, so we’re not out of it yet, but at least the winds are easing off some. Rains are much worse to our southeast. Prayers for Houston. We’re ready to help with any bat fallout from trees and bridges.
The leaf bats are hanging on with both feet as the wind buffets their roosts.
Here we go.
Moth Roll – In the Calm Before the Storm
Swoop Zone SLO-MO
Happy No-Sun-Day! Don’t look at the sun! We love the moon! The oak leaves left crescents on the flight cage pond liner below!
Are these pups playing tag or is this a jam session? Mexican free-tailed bats have been documented to jam each other’s echolocation signals when competition for food gets intense (see Aaron Corcoran’s research at http://sonarjamming.com) . Do eastern red bats do the same in similarly competitive situations? Here in the flight cage, there are not enough moths for all the 30 plus flying rehab bats. Is this pup following his sibling to practice jamming his call and stealing the moth? Or just playing?
This eastern red girl is from the family brought in by Evan Alcantara from Salem Hill Drive in Austin.
They have thrived here at the Refuge given a second chance and we’re thrilled that they’ll be back out in the wild as soon as the weather breaks.
Here she’s performing a flip-turn at the palm fronds as she shreds the flight cage.