It was an amazing experience to sit amidst a horde of hunting bats.
Derek Kite alerted me to the shoreline feast. For an short intense period in the late evening, the air above a tiny stretch of beach became filled with swift, silent bats feasting on hundreds of mating mayflies. Abruptly it all ended, only to be replayed the next evening.
Derek and I adopted different photographic strategies. He tried to record bats as they approached and left the feeding area; I tried to capture the action just offshore. Each approach had a remarkably low yield. We were, after all, attempting to photograph small, dark, swift flyers in unknown positions at night. His percentage of somewhat acceptable shots was about 1%; mine was even lower.
But, what fun.
In Derek’s first two pictures, the bats seem to follow a line of rocks as they leave the feeding grounds.
I managed one head-on shot over the water.
And while the bat (and its reflection) is soft, it does show one hunting amidst the crowd of mayflies.
Derek Kite’s pictures are used with permission.
I think they’re great pictures. Any idea what kind of bats these are Alistair. I’ve harboured a certain interest in them since I had a colony in my house many years ago. I set up a bat house appropriate for the Kootenays but to my knowledge it remains unoccupied. I’ve moved since.
These are incredible photos! I appreciate your interest in nature and in shedding a positive light on bats.
Juliet, do the pictures give you a hint as to the species?
I remember trying to get close enough in a canoe to get a shot of a loon bigger than a black dot in the picture with my normal lens 50 years ago. Holding the thing in focus as the canoe drifts closer, waiting and waiting so as not to waste expensive film before i get real close.. then splash, it dives, and i have to wait a minute or two for it to surface 100 feet further away in any direction and start slowly repositioning myself where i can once again stay motionless and the craft will drift the right direction to approach that bird all over again.
Spent a couple hours to get one weak picture on some occasions.
Now i’m imagining trying to shoot erratically flying bats in the dark.
Isn’t it nice we have digital now and can take a hundred shots hoping to catch one just right.
d
Doug, it would have been nice had it taken a mere hundred clicks to get those shots. But, yes, it is only possible with digital cameras and capacious cards.
speculation: a longer exposure using a strobe light over a few seconds might have made an interesting image. one might get several different images of bats in odd positions all in one frame.
Doug, I thought of setting my flash for multiple bursts to get such an image, but given the vast number of shots I knew I had take, the longer flash recycle time would have cut down on the total number of individual shots that could be taken during the intense ten minutes of bat hunting.
The flash lighting gives these scenes a creepy diorama effect! Sounds like an adventure Alistair.