Bent Wing Bats

Friday night the skies stayed clear so we were able to venture over to Mount Etna (named after the one in Sicily, but no, not a volcano) to the bat cleft. The bats arrive every November to have their young and depart near the end of February once they are able to fend for themselves. According to our guide, we were hitting it at the perfect time...mums were still there and bubs were starting to venture out in the evenings to test out their wings.

We made the trek up the 1.2k trail to the top gradually with our guide who would stop to give us a bit of the history of the fight to protect the bat cleft and other nearby caves from mining and to point out different plants and insects native to the variable dry rainforest that we were in. She educated on how the different plants would have been used by the aboriginals. One of the tree leaves contained a substance that could be used as soap, another could be used for cooking and others contained poisons used for fishing. There were a number of butterflies along the way. We even saw an Echidna (see below).


Once we made it to the cleft (which was like a vertical crack in a wall of rock) we donned harnesses that would allow us to clip ourselves into the rock face so we could safely lean over the cleft to watch the bats as they departed for the night. It was then that she mentioned the snakes (there wasn't anything about snakes in the brochure)! Two types of python and the brown tree snake hunt bats. Lovely.

Now it was getting dark and the bats were starting to emerge, so one at a time we clipped into the rock and leaned over into the cave. Bats swirled their way up the shaft and out into the night flying right past us and sometimes, especially the less skilled new fliers, into us. They felt like getting brushed by a feather they were so light and soft. Sure enough after only a short time the snakes began to make their way into the opening to hunt for dinner. We had the privilege (ha ha) of seeing a spotted python and a brown tree snake. Lucky me! The spotted python (below) is supposed to be harmless to humans and the brown tree snake was said to prefer bats over people any day, but I was still a little uneasy. I do have to admit it was kind of interesting watching them lunge out from the rock to catch a bat, but as soon at one was remotely close, I was ready to leave.



We travelled much quicker down the hill stopping only now to learn a little about the geology of the region. A number of frogs had come out at this point and we were introduced to a few different varieties. A few wallabies hung out for long enough for us to see them under our flashlights. We also ran into a fair number of moths and spiders as well. By the time we were back to our cars, the mozzies were out in full force...too bad there weren't any bats around now!