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| On our way back out we had a lone flyer... one of the little guys woke up.... | This is a bad thing and we try not to let it happen as they go asleep (hibernate) with just so much body fat ... enough for a wake up or two...but many more and they would lose their body fat and die during their sleep.... | We left the southern entrance and went to another section... train tunnel...typically we have long ear bats here.... something kinda rare and worth the extra trip... |
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| This time was a bust! We saw 5 myotis and 1 pip....that's it!! | But it is a cool passage! You can tell we hadn't had rain.. all of the entrances were stuffed 3-4 foot deep with leaves that usually get washed out! | John....Our recorder.... |
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| John (the other John) a counter.... | We then headed to Glade Entrance (the Northern Entrance). Here we usually find at least some long ears in the Homestead entrance area..... we didn't find any bats at all in the area. High temperatures here though... 62 degrees. | But inside Glade is where the place to be for hibernating goes on! Giant mats of myotis are on the walls. |
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| A counter measures a foot long and a foot wide to find out the packing density...ie...how many bats per square foot of mat! | Our packing rate today was 226! Pretty Tight living (or sleeping quarters!) | Our counter Mark |
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| What a way to break in the rookie! <grin!> | A hand to show scale.... | It looks like a bat continent of Africa!! |
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| We look in all kinds of nooks and cranny's for our sleeping friends. | But we do have to say... this was the driest we've ever had a bat count! Typically we're wet up to our knees! Today, we barely had shoes get wet! | Up close and personal! That's my kind of count.... I can see them just fine at this range! |
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| When a bat sleeps, their feet clench (or tighten up) and hence they can hold on to seemingly nothing... good grips! | Others assume quite strange ways of sleeping... stiff, holding themselves up, spread eagle, etc... | But we finally finished and it's time to exit the cave and go home. Web report by: ddv |
Macintosh 
