Ethereal nature

Around this time of year, I like nothing better than to stand outside at dusk and admire the small local population of bats as they flitter around my head. It really is a wonderful and surprisingly moving experience.

When I say 'small local population', I really do mean small. I seldom see more than two or three bats at any one time—unlike my friend Stense, who counted over 60 bats leaving the roost in her attic recently. Stense also has ospreys nesting outside her window. I am consumed with jealousy.

Yesterday evening, I naively decided to try to photograph the local bats as they hunted for insects above my back garden. Well, naive is probably the wrong word as I knew that my efforts were doomed to failure; I was really just being ridiculously optimistic. So I set my camera's ISO and aperture to maximum and fired away, capturing dozens of photos of empty skies and blurred trees. Bats are fast little buggers.

But I did manage to capture a few images of blurs remotely resembling bats:

Bat above my back garden
A bat flittering above my back garden last night.

Yes, I know the photos are crap, but I rather like their ethereal, crepuscular nature—which pretty much sums up bats, as far as I'm concerned.

Richard Carter, FCD

Writer and photographer Richard Carter, FCD is the founder of the Friends of Charles Darwin. He lives in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.WebsiteNewsletterMastodonetc…

2 comments

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *