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received a An evening out watching massive overdose of chloroform and telly thought it This photo is a screen shot from the deserved a proper infrared video that Jonathan Durward lie-in. shot at the roost You will need to look After a few closely but you can just make out two minutes, all was very beady eyes quiet and we settled into as Vampyrum spectrum is the largest much comfort as species in the Americas and a could be achieved predator. It hunts , reptiles while sitting on a and small , including very small folding smaller species of bat. Vampyrum stool on uneven ground. The returned and all seemed well. lives in small family groups and roost, although some 20 metres Then my folding stool creaked the spend much of their time away, was clearly visible, and I slightly and gave a lurch. With in a tree roots in dense forest, was eagerly anticipating the considerable muscular effort, I occasionally making forays to excitement of watching the New managed not to fall to the ground. bring back a tasty lizard or rat. World’s largest bat swoop out of I improvised a repair in total One of the highlights of this the tree and flap noisily off to find silence in the light of a red head- year’s Trinibats trip was an a tasty rat. The infrared video was torch. Within ten minutes the opportunity to spend an evening focused on the roost and set to stool had permanently collapsed or night watching at one of two record all the spectacular activity and I was left to stand. This gave known roosts at a secret location that we felt our efforts deserved. me a slightly better view of the in Trinidad in order to record the What could possibly go wrong? miniature camera screen, but soon behaviour of this very impressive necessitated regular twisting and and fascinating bat. The tropical twilight didn’t last flexing of my legs to stave off My evening shift at the roost long and we soon found that, far cramp. Then the camera started to began just before 6 pm. With two from having a good view of the give trouble. It had somehow been other watchers I set off into dense roost opening, we couldn’t see set to a mode which saved a forest, carrying the gear we would anything at all. Torches, of backup copy of the video file on need – stools, an infrared video course, were strictly forbidden the second memory card, using up camera, tripod, bat detector and a except for a red head torch for the available memory far too hammock (a brief rest was brief periods. The only option was quickly. Some hasty deletion of allowed for one of us at a time). to peer at the tiny screen of the backup files and resetting of As we approached the area of the video camera which, thanks to the options seemed to solve the roost tree we were trying to be infrared lamp, showed a greenish problem until the battery ran low. absolutely silent because the bats monochrome image that made the Silent changing of memory cards have exceptionally acute hearing. surrounding darkness seem even and batteries (involving very slow Their ears are trumpet-shaped, more impenetrable. Mr. Noisy rummaging in the bag) was constantly turning and scanning, (who had been suffering from a miraculously accomplished, but and are used to locate prey. The malady of the bowel for several by now we were convinced that slightest sound from us could days) walked off as quietly as he the bats had discovered us, cause them to remain out of sight could to select a spot for an laughed themselves silly, escaped all night. One of our number felt improvised latrine. He did well through a hitherto undiscovered the need to walk about rather and was really rather unobtrusive back entrance to the roost and noisily while rummaging in his until he tried to find his way back emigrated to . bag, and he had to be restrained to us in the dark. Despairingly, we from making comments on watched the red dot of his head Yet somehow they hadn’t. We possible sitting positions in a torch moving further and further began to hear quiet sounds from stage whisper which would have away. A rescue mission was the direction of the roost. woken a post that doesn’t hear as swiftly and silently carried out, he Squinting at the screen, we could well as it used to, had just

Bats in Beds The newsletter of the Bedfordshire Bat Group Jul 2016 Vol 111

8 detect movement and the equally unobtrusively, with fanciful name after watching its occasional glimpse of glowing something dangling from its jaws. antics in the impenetrable eyes within the tree hole. The excitement continued all blackness of the nocturnal forest. Sometimes it was two eyes, but at evening. For much of the time we What we could see was very other times there was just one. could see at least one in limited; and yet somehow the tiny One of the bats had only one eye, the roost, either grooming or greenish screen, with the perhaps the result of selecting an chewing a prey item. Every now atmosphere of the forest all excessively vicious item of prey and then a bat would emerge and around, made the experience more sometime in the past. After an disappear into the forest for a few vivid than any wildlife enthralling period of watching and minutes. Usually it returned with documentary. Tired as I was, I listening to this and noting the something hanging from its almost resented the group of red grooming behaviour, we were mouth. Imagining the experience torches which appeared at treated to the sight of a bat of a rat on the forest floor was not midnight to take over from us. leaping from the roost, opening its a comfortable thought. All quiet Watching the video later on a wings to display its one metre and peaceful, with morsels of computer screen, I could see extra wingspan and vanishing into the food now and then, until suddenly details such as the rat’s tail dark forest. The idea that we a gaping mouth full of dagger-like dangling from the bat’s jaw, but it could hear the beating of the teeth flashes without warning out couldn’t compare with the feeling wings was wrong; the bat was of the dark and closes on your of being there. absolutely silent when it flew. A head. Vampyrum spectrum, the Bob Cornes few minutes later it returned, , didn’t seem such a

The mysterious case of the the bananas skins and feasted on our banana thieves in the fruit bowl. (See night exhibit A) The Photos of and bananas Jude women who looked Hirstwood after the chalets While the Vampyrum were monitored could not believe and filmed by brave souls who spent how many bananas all night watching the roost while the we got through as a rest of us trapped in the forest or group. Little did went back to the Hacienda and they know. several of the party joined Daniel H We had little difficulty in identifying in photographing the bats which fed the culprits (see exhibit B). on the bananas which the owners left in our room. The people on the previous week’s trip had lured passing Carollia perspiculata indoors with the promise of bananas and so when we got up the next day we found that they had chewed EXTREMELY neat holes in

Bats in Beds The newsletter of the Bedfordshire Bat Group October 2010 Volume 90