Bats 2023

 A couple of weeks ago (written on 19 February) I noticed for the first time this year a few Grey-headed Flying Foxes in the forest in Mullet Creek.  I estimated perhaps 200.  Yesterday, for the first time I could smell them and hear them, hanging in trees almost out to Karbeethong Avenue.  My estimate was well over 1,000 (at least).

This evening at 2030 hrs I looked out from our lounge to the SW, as a tree was silhouetted against the red sky.  To my surprise, as I had checked for flyout across the Inlet and there had been none.  There was a stream of bats heading towards the town centre, where I know there are flowering gums.  Here are a few photos.

The flyout seemed to die down after about 5 minutes, and by 2045 it was pitch dark.  The image below shows the direction of flight with a yellow arrow, and the approximate position of our house with a red arrow.

I have looked back into history through my blog and it seems the biggest year was 2018 with some posts from March 22-24.  One of the images in that series shows the hillside towards the Howe looking white, with Bloodwood blossom.  That flowering has not been evident this year (so far - it's still only mid February).

After I was away for a couple of days we checked the scene again, looking more or less continually from 2005 hours.  The first bats appeared in the sky about 2013 and they had all moved out of sight by 2020.  

This was taken at 20:18:40 and shows the peak.  Click on image to see the full number of bat-specks.  I haven't tried to count them.

Apart from being a nice snip of the night sky. the lower pink band gives a reference for the height of the flock (if that is the right word).

Some of them were quite high.

My impression is that they were mainly going towards Captains Creek, rather than the Town Centre. A relatively small proportion were heading across Bottom Lake towards Fairview.