Day 268 - Bertie the Bat

lunchtime is crunch time

The batphone rang for Anna today, so of course she immediately donned cape, put her pants on the outside, and dashed off to collect little Bertie here from a local school.

He'd been stuck indoors over the weekend...they think he must have flown in through a door which had been left open late on Thursday evening...this morning he was found, tired and hungry, on the floor in the sports hall.

He's a Common Pipistrelle, and the school staff that rescued him named him Bertie.

Having found him to be quite lively and animated, and apparently none the worse for wear, Anna brought him home with a plan to release him this evening.

And so Anna ran through the usual checks...inspecting his right wing for any problems...there's no sign of damage here:

wing of bat

Similarly, all is looking good for his left wing too...

other wing of bat

...although he's not too happy about the inspection!

Concluding that all was well, it was time to feed him up for release...

dinner dinner dinner dinner...

Here's a long, unedited video of Bertie having a couple of mealworm for lunch.




His appetite was strong, as you can see, and he ate 5 or 6 of these on the trot!

As dusk approached, we headed back to the school where he was found, 15 miles away, hoping to release him around 10-20 minutes after sunset, which is the time that he would naturally be emerging for his regular evening's foraging.

When Anna took him out of his box to release him under the trees just near where he was found, he seemed oddly reluctant to go.

He was a little lethargic initially, and despite shivering strongly to warm up, he didn't look as though he would fly.  Anna put him under her arm (by which I mean, up her armpit!) for 5 minutes to see if it would help, before once more holding him up to the night to see if he'd make a break for it.

For a few moments we were concerned that we'd have to take him home with us, which would leave care issues to sort out for whilst we're away...then it seemed as though he was just going to fall back to sleep...



But happily, instead off dropping off to sleep, he dropped from Anna's out-stretched fingers, spread his wings (coincidentally, his own out-stretched fingers!), and disappeared immediately into the surrounding darkness, never to be seen again. 

Another successful rescue operation for International Bat Rescue!

Be safe, little Bertie, and try not to fly into any more buildings!

:-)

Day 255 - Failed Experiment

catch that pigeon

It was another of those longest days today...but not in a good way!

Work was really busy all day, culminating in an intensely frustrating and inconveniently over-run meeting with HR (how do these people sleep?!)...so I left work just before 5pm, later than intended, and had to (literally - and I mean that...well...literally!) run round Sainsbury's to grab a few supplies, before dashing home by around 5.40pm.

I'd promised to help Anna with some weird bat bothering escapade this evening, and as it was taking place in Melton Mowbray, we had to be away by 6pm. 

By 7.30pm we were on site and preparing to start the survey.

The plan was for each of us to take a pre-planned and very specific route around the perimeter of two adjoining fields.  We were to spend 5 minutes in one spot, listening for and recording bat sightings, before spending 5 minutes moving slowly on to the next spot (whilst listening for and recording bat sightings).   This process was repeated 12 times over 2 hours, as we covered both fields between us. 

In order to complete this seemingly simple task, I had to carry in one hand a clipboard with a map and spare paper for recording manually if needed.  In my other hand, I was to carry a bat detector (which transposes the sound of a bat's echolocation down to a frequency that human's can hear).

In my other, other hand, I carried a large box containing a sound recording system, to record any passing bat activity for later analysis.  In my final other hand, I held my smartphone and recorded details of any sightings onto a Google Form (one handed of course).

I had to do this whilst walking around an unfamiliar field, in the deepening dark of night.

So that was easy...not!

All was quiet for the first and last 50 minutes or so, but in the middle there was a flurry of bat activity....mostly pipistrelles foraging and commuting, although there were one or two other species which I'm not familiar enough with to be able to identify. 

I did catch a brief glimpse of a fox, sneaking through the field behind me, and at one point a deer was barking away just a few metres away from me on the other side of the hedgerow. 

The photo above was an experiment with Night mode, using a new camera app I've been playing with on my phone.  I'd disturbed a pigeon which was hiding in the long grass, and didn't seem able to fly away...this is an 8 second exposure of that pigeon!

So, erm yeah...Fail!!

Finally, to illustrate just how long a day it's been, check this out...

what's in the bag?!

I've been waiting for this big bag of SportPursuit delights to arrive for weeks...today, at last, it arrived...

But it's just a few minutes before midnight now, and I have yet to open it!

This will soon be rectified!

;-)

Day 103 - Bats and Bums

bats bum

I'm cheating just a little bit today.  To be honest with you (which I do try to be, even though I'm not entirely sure who you are, or why you're interested), I didn't actually take this photo.  But it was taken today, (by Anna) so I think it's close enough for jazz...

Speaking of which (ok, I know we weren't really speaking of jazz, but please bear with me on this, it could be worth it...), there's a saying amongst students of jazz, particularly those who play guitar;

"Whichever note you play, you're only 1 fret away from a good one."

For instance, if you are in the Key of C major (for simplicity's sake), then all of the notes are drawn from the C major scale, which consists of;

C D EF G A BC

The spaces represent the notes that sit between the scale tones.

The idea is that as a guitarist, if you just put your finger on any fret on any string and play the note, it won't always be one of the concordant, pleasant sounding notes.   Five of the twelve possible notes you can play will sound discordant, and unpleasant - the traditional "bum note".

Guitarists are very afraid of bum notes! 

But if you look at the spaces in the scale above, you'll notice that whichever one you pick, the note either side is "good" - it's a scale tone.

Practically, this means that if you hit a bum note, then you can immediately slide either up or down one fret, and the note you thus land on will be good. 

Psychologically, this can be quite a liberating trick.

Much of musical performance is in the mind, as is true of sports, and also climbing.

There's a formula that describes this quite succinctly (which, going by past record, is pretty much definitely more than I'm going to be able to manage...);

p = P - i

where p = performance, P = Potential, and i = interference. 

This is saying that your actual performance (musical, sporting or otherwise) will be equal to your best possible performance, minus anything that is preventing you from performing at your peak.  Much of this interference is internal - the voice in your head.

Your potential might be level ten, but your internal voice whispers in your ear about how it's that difficult bit coming up, or the lights are bright, or reminding you that there are lots of people watching, and essentially talks you down to performing at a level six.

The instinctive and most obvious approach to improving performance is to improve potential - if I train or practice so that my potential is now level eleven, then my performance could rise to a level seven! 

However, logic dictates that I could take a more subtle, effective approach - reduce the interference, and maybe perform at a level eight or nine - without improving my potential at all!

This little phrase functions in this way - it helps to quieten the anxious voice in your head that prevents the music from flowing properly...reducing interference, and consequently boosting performance.   It gives the player the confidence to take risks, to worry less about hitting a bum note, knowing there's always an easy escape route...

However, I actually prefer a more-accurate-but-marginally-more-cynical version of the phrase;

"Whichever note you play, you're only one fret away from another one!"


None of which helps this poor little dessicated bat.  He's a young pup, and was probably out learning to fly.  He ended up popping his clogs (with his backwards feet), probably as a result of losing his mother, or her failing him in some way, before he was old enough to support himself. 

And it seems like his grave (between the ceiling joists in a pub in Leicestershire) was nice and dry and ensured that he hasn't decayed since he died.

I did a bat survey at this pub with Anna last Summer (do you see what I did last Summer, again?), and once the bats started to emerge from the roost at around 10 in the evening, there was a steady stream of them leaving for quite a while.  We were trying to count them, and reckoned around 150 flew past us. 

That was my best bat survey experience...usually, they're a bit dull, to be honest...

Sorry, babe...but this one was good!

:-)

Day 60 - Billy the B.L.E.

new arrival #1

Meet Billy the Brown Long Eared bat...how cute is he?!

The bits sticking up just outside his eye, that look like Doberman's ears, aren't ears...they're tragus, Billy's equivalent of the little bits that stick out just in front of your ears. 

His ears are the large, back-swept curved structure just behind the tragus - when resting, he curls them back in this way.  When he's alert, they stand up tall, several times the height of his head.   

Relatively speaking, it's as if you put your arms up straight behind your ears...he's a little marvel!

Once he's caught some food, he curls his ears up like little devil horns...he's just the coolest little dude...

If you take a look at the video below, you'll see him moving his ears some.

You'll also see him eating live meal worm, which is a standard food for bats in captivity.   He eats loads of them - up to 15 in a single meal, and 2 meals a day...hence there being so much poo around his vivarium.

Unfortunately, Billy has a tear in his wing, and one of his wing bones (actually a finger bone) is poking out.   But it's tiny, thinner than a hair...or at least, it appears to be.   I don't know, do I?!

Anna's the batty one around here...(but that's a whole 'nother blog entry). 

Anna is looking after him for a few days or so on behalf of another bat foster carer.

Overall Billy seems very alert, active, healthy, and very well.   Anna is licensed to handle him, but she has her work cut out...he tried to fly at one point, and can be quite wriggly.

We're hoping to get better photo's with a decent camera, over the next few days.

Watch this space!