Topic: I've been flashing in the dark.....

[Chrispy]

and this is what I got....

[manicscousers]

wow, excellent picture  ;D

[compostbin]

 8)........wow,.......thass a great picture....woz it taken using a digital S.L.R?

[betula]

Wonderful :)

[Chrispy]

8)........wow,.......thass a great picture....woz it taken using a digital S.L.R?

No, not an SLR (I wish), but a Kodak z740, a standard sort of digital camera with 10x zoom.

The bats fly around and change direction with increadable speed.
I would pre-focus the camera on something about 20' away by pressing the button half way down and then when a bat came my way I would fully depress the button and hope for the best, I have quite a few blanks.

The great thing is how many bats there are.
I had only ever seen single bats before, but there must be about a dozen in the trees, and at dusk they all come out to feed for about 15 minutes, and they are flying about 5ft above my head.

[betula]

I stayed in a cottage in Hay on Wye once.Every night hundreds of bats come out of the roof space.They were wonderful.As you say ,they get very close.
Got up in the ealy hours and looked out of the window and all you could see were bats flying around.It was magical.We rescued a baby one out of the bin in the bathroom..he was cute.

Will never forget that holiday. :)

[Digeroo]

Amazing pic.  I just love watching bats.  I often stay at lottie late to watch them.

[Robert_Brenchley]

When I was a kid we used to stay on a smallholding at Fownhope, halfway between Ross and Hereford. There were bats by the hundred over the river every night, mostly small ones - probably pipistrelles - but a few bigger ones as well.

[saddad]

I watch bats flying on my lottie at dusk too...  :)

[GrannieAnnie]

Neat picture!!  Do your bats go <biink, bink> a very high pitched twinkly noise like they do here?

[pumkinlover]

Yes apparently-but most of us are not able to hear that pitch as our hearing changes as we get older :(

[Aden Roller]

Brilliant photo - amazing creatures. We get a few around here.

On School Camp years ago with 50 children late one evening one of the children spotted a pretty big bat and began to fuss  ::) so, as we (a group of 11 yr olds and me) stood watching, I took out my quite big mobile phone and twiddled with the buttons.

"What'cha doing?"
"Sh.. I'm trying to keep control of my remore control bats"

Soon several of the children joined us as four large bats circled around over head in and out of the trees and across the open camp site.

Many of the children played along with one taking the MOB and controlling the bats swoop. Any fear was soon forgotten as we stood enjoying the spectacle....and playing.  :)

[pumkinlover]

That's a lovely story AR ;D

[Aden Roller]

That's a lovely story AR ;D

I was firstly amazed that the children played along and later worried that they had believed me!  :o  ;D

I checked later... they knew their teacher was off his rocker (well most of them) so it was OK. I didn't want them to go home and tell their familes I'd taught them all about remote control bats!!