bat night, schloss ambras

darn – i forgot to publish this on friday… well, there you go!

i met toni vorauer again yesterday – there was a bat night at schloss ambras (ambras castle) near innsbruck.

the first bats were flying around when it was still pretty bright, and i watched one bat hunting just some centimeters above the water level, and then fly into the web. impressive animals (regarding the hunt, not the getting-caught)!

we caught 8 (!) individuals, from 4 species: 4 common pipistrelles (pipistrellus pipistrellus, zwergfledermaus) – all of which were pregnant, 1 noctule bat (nyctalus noctula, grosser abendsegler), 1 leisler’s bat (nyctalus leisleri, kleiner abendsegler) and 2 greater mouse-eared bats (myotis myotis, grosses mausohr) – austria’s biggest bat!

 
when i first helped toni in kauns two weeks ago, i thought the whiskered bat was acrimonious. well guess what – i didn’t know the leisler’s bat back then. it weighed 28 g (~1 ounce) – as opposed to the whiskered bat’s 7g – , and it’s BITCHY!
it didn’t even let go once it found something to bite. the resulting bite marks (there are several all over my fingers) should be the distance of the leisler’s bat’s canines, i think.
the noctule and greater mouse-eared bats weren’t very peacable either… :roll:

here’s a complete list of the animals we caught:

this time, we added some garlic to the brunée sauce, and it turned out to be a fantastic idea! :wink:

more information on bats in austria can be found at www.fledermausschutz.at (german link).