Bat House Forum

[julie]

Hello Bat People,

I hope you don't mind me barging onto your forum to ask for your help with identifying some bats? Though I know nothing at all about bats, I am fond of the ones I see and hear each morning on my walk with the dogs. I was able to get a little clip of them this morning and though the creatures themselves are not too clear, their distinctive calls are. Can anyone help me identify them?




Hmmm. I just looked at this on the forum but there didn't appear to be any sound? I guess to hear the bats you may have to click through and see the video on youtube or go here to see it on my blog: http://www.tenerife-tattle.com/2009/04/ ... enborough/

P:S: If you read down the comments of the post you'll see why I need to have the bats identified and could do with some advice regarding the damage introduced species of bats may be doing to native ones.

[Joe Spencer]

Julie, the sound worked for me. Was your youtube audio slider all the way up on the forum page? UPDATED I originally merely guessed that it was the invasive Egyptian Fruit Bat common in Africa and Egypt but since I see bats flying near lights, that is usually a sign of insectivores. Julie can you explain to us what the applause was in the video? The Egyptian fruit bat is in a unique class since it is a small mega-chiroptera fruit bat which also uses echolocation. They're seemingly very adaptable and noisy/audibly as well. What you may be hearing: They are unique in that they are the only Megachiroptera that uses echo location. The way that this species does this is in itself worthy of note, in that it is the only form of bat echo location that is audible to the human ear. That is because they do not make the high frequency calls that most bats do in the larynx. Good luck on what you find out! I'm curious too! Here is a photo of the Egyptian fruit bat showing them in a small cage revealing how small they are for megachiroptera.

[julie]

Hi Joe,

The clapping noise is just a wav file I added for fun when I prepared the video for Youtube - same as the little drum roll at the beginning. It was a personal reference to finally getting these guys on film - however briefly. The actual clip itself has some background noise which is only waves and what sounds like a glass breaking. I have no idea where the breaking glass came from as the clip was taken about 6 in the morning and there was not another soul about.

I did get the impression that the bats were skimming over the pool, (it is a sea-fed pool) perhaps scooping insects. I don't think there are many fruit plants around - cactus fruit perhaps - but other than that...? Insects as a food source would make more sense in terms of availability.

[AlienSpy]

I may be wrong, but I think your flying friends are birds.

We have night hawks in Pennsylvania that make a similar sound. Maybe a species of birds similar to those are in your area.

Maybe a birding group in your area might be able to help.