Our first night at our home we ate our dinner at the table outside on our patio. This was done for two reasons. To begin with, it is our favorite place at our house. More importantly, we had no other table to eat at. That night we were greeted by two of Brisbane's nocturnal animals...the possum, who quietly crept along the top of our fence, and the flying fox who, not very gracefully, slammed into the palm tree at the corner of the yard to get at whatever was in their for its dinner. What is a flying fox? It is a one of the largest bats in the world. There we were, watching the silhouette of this megabat in the moonlight as it reached and climbed around before it took off right over our heads. Needless to say, the girls screamed and one of them, who shall remain nameless, announced through tears she would eat the remainder of her meals in Australia
inside the house.
I have tried to take many pictures of the bats flying over the house at dusk, but they never turn out. However, they can be seen in trees around town and there are hundreds that "hang out" at a nearby park/playground. We went last weekend because there is a nice flat path for the girls to rollerblade on, so I took the opportunity to snap some photos.
An Eerie Sight
Taking Flight
Unlike other varieties of bats, the flying fox eats things like pollen, fruit, and nectar. They also don't use sonar, but use there keen sense of sight and smell to find there food.
Up Close and "Unwrapped"
The playground nestled in amongst the bats.
If you can get past their extreme size and wingspan, they actually have cute little faces. (relatively speaking for a bat)
Since that first night, we have all grown accustomed to the very large bats. In fact, there are many times at dusk when you can find us sprawled out on our patio sofa looking up in the sky and counting how many fly over our heads.
