“Kristen, can you buy me this puppy?”

Yesterday Chris and I visited the pet shop in town. I had passed by it several times but never gone in. The signs outside were promising, stating things like “We have puppies!” and “We have kittens!” How could I pass it up? I was definitely not disappointed. There was an adorable black lab/kelpie mix puppy, about 15 kittens, and three ferrets. Heaven on Earth! After oohing and ahhing over them for several minutes, the owner came up and asked us what we were looking to get. Of course I said everything.  :) He realized we were just looking and left us to continue cooing over the animals. Chris made friends with the puppy and asked me, “Can you buy me this puppy?” Oh how I wish! One day we will have cats and dogs and rats galore! But until then we will just have to keep visiting pet shops so I can get my cute animal fix.

You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me

Thursday (January 26) was Australia Day. The date commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet, comprised of eleven British ships carrying 348 free persons and 696 prisoners, at Sydney Cove in 1788. This established British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of the country. To celebrate, Chris and I went to the Naracoorte Australia Day breakfast and celebration, put on by local service clubs and the town council. According to Andrew, the groundskeeper at the park, only bogans (the Australian equivalent of hillbillies and rednecks) and American tourists go to these types of celebrations. Well I AM an American, and I want to get as much of a taste of Australia as I can while I’m here. So despite the fact that the breakfast started at 7:00am (that’s right, 7:00 in the morning, WAY too early for me to even be THINKING about waking up, let alone be dressed and at the town square eating sausage and egg on toast and pretending to be Australian for a day), I dragged my butt out of bed and bit the bullet. 

The celebration started off with a yummy breakfast of sausage and egg on toast, delicious fresh fruit, and coffee. While I am embracing as much Australian culture as I can during my time here, Vegemite remains on my list of Australian things to avoid at all costs. Also on the list are saltwater crocodiles and box jellyfish. Our breakfast was accompanied first by a lovely song on the bagpipes, and then by the beautiful voice of local teenage singer Georgie singing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen and “Travelling Soldier” by the Dixie Chicks, both of which I absolutely love. I must admit both songs brought tears to my eyes. Georgie followed up with three classic Australian songs:   

"Waltzing Matilda",  "I am Australian"

(which somebody on YouTube commented should be the national anthem, as it actually makes you feel something, whereas the real anthem doesn't), and

"I Still Call Australia Home".

Lots of people joined in singing those three songs, and I could feel the love they have for their country. Georgie’s guitarist then sang a medley of classic Australian songs, accompanied by a man playing spoons. I wish I could play spoons like that!

 Breakfast music on the bagpipes. Despite what my Nana used to say about bagpipes (i.e. that they make a horrific noise like a dying cat) I find them quite beautiful. 

 A guy playing spoons! I want to learn...

The official ceremony kicked off with the singing of the national anthem, for which we were all given a program with the words in it. Apparently most people know the first verse but few know what comes after that. According to advice given to newly-adopted Australian citizens by one of the speakers later in the day, “Don’t bother learning the Aussie anthem, no one knows the words anyway. We all know ‘Australians all let us re-Joyce, for she is young and free duh duh duh wealth duh toil dah dah dah girt by sea hmm hmm hmm hmm Advance Australia Fair.’ That’s it.” How strange! In the US most people know the words to the national anthem (at least in my experience). We also put our hand over our hearts, which Australians don’t do. Don’t get me wrong, Australians are a very proud and patriotic people, but I guess it just doesn’t manifest in quite the same way. During the singing of the national anthem, I ran into the same dilemma I encounter at the beginning of every Girl Guide meeting when the girls do the flag raising ceremony. I feel odd not saluting the flag with everyone else at the meeting, but at the same time I’d feel strange if I did salute it, as I’m not an Australian citizen. While I don’t mean to show any disrespect, I don’t feel it would be “proper” to salute any flag other than the flag of my own country. When it came to singing the Australian national anthem, I decided to stand and listen respectfully instead of singing along (plus I didn’t know the tune anyway).

Another of my favorite parts of the ceremony was the Citizenship Ceremony, during which five people took the oath of citizenship and became Australia’s newest citizens. Australia Day is the most popular day for these ceremonies, and I can understand why! It’s a very patriotic day and lots of people come out to celebrate. There was a mom with her two sons, and the mom looked so proud and happy as she and her kids stepped up to the microphone to take the oath. You could tell by her beaming smile that it was probably one of the proudest moments of her life. One of the other ladies barely spoke English and could barely complete the oath. It’s fantastic that she wants to become a citizen of such a great country as Australia, but at the same time I do feel that anyone wishing to become a citizen of ANY country should learn the predominant language of the country and be able to perform at least basic communication in that language. I definitely think new citizens should also keep their culture’s language and customs and celebrate their roots, but it is also their responsibility to learn their new country’s language. Okay, enough preaching for now.

Decked out in patriotic red, white, and blue. Well, at least one of us is.

After the Naracoorte celebrations, Chris and I headed to the Australia Day barbeque and fair at Kongorong, a small town about 1 ½ hours away. Chris and I kicked off our celebrations by painting little toy boomerangs, which we left to dry in the sun and forgot to pick up when we left. Bummer. We listened to another singing of the national anthem by a teenage girl about 15, during which a gust of wind came along and blew the girl’s dress up, exposing her underwear for all to see. She remained quite poised and continued the song amid quiet chuckles and surreptitious glances. After the formal award ceremonies (for “Australia Day Citizen Award,” “Australia Day Young Citizen Award,” etc.), I asked when the ferret racing was. The flier and internet advertisement had said there would be ferret racing, and I was beyond stoked! I cannot express the depths of my utter disappointment when I asked and was told that the race was cancelled because it was "too hot for the ferrets." Don't ferrets live in the freaking desert?! The funny thing was that I had had a feeling before we left that we’d either miss the race or it would be cancelled. My gut was right. Ah well, I guess that’s just one more thing to add to my “bucket list”: watch ferret racing. 

 One of the old vintage cars at the Kongorong Australia Day barbeque and fair. When I told Chris to do the Vanna White, he had no idea what I was talking about. What a sad life without “Wheel of Fortune”!

After wandering around for a bit and eating pavlova, Chris and I headed to the beach, about a half hour drive from Kongorong. The past week or so has been very hot (upper 90s) and the beach sounded like a perfect idea. Of course on the day we decided to go the temperature had dropped about 20°F and the wind had picked up. It was still a lovely day but way too chilly for lounging on the beach (and DEFINITELY way too chilly for a dip in the already-frigid ocean water). We got fish and chips from a beachfront shop and ate them in the car, and then took a short stroll along the beach. We headed home and continued our “Big Bang Theory” marathon. After many years of my friends telling me how good the show is, I have finally started watching it and I do agree, it’s quite funny.

At the beach on a VERY windy day.

We’ll have to go back on a more beach-appropriate day. Aka any other summer day except the day we went.

I had a fantastic time celebrating Australia Day and partaking in local community events. I love being part of a small community where things like the breakfast and the fair are eagerly anticipated and well-attended. Australians are definitely a proud people who love their country, and who also love to poke fun at themselves. I’ll leave you with two parting thoughts:

The first is the full advice given to the newly-sworn in citizens at the Citizenship Ceremony earlier in the day: "Don't bother learning the Aussie anthem, no one knows the words anyway. We all know 'Australians all let us re-Joyce, for she is young and free duh duh duh duh wealth duh toil dah dah dah girt by sea hmm hmm hmm hmm Advance Australia fair’. And don't call yourself 'Australian', we say ‘Strayan’. S-T-R-A-Y-A-N. And one last thing, you gotta learn this: 'Aussie Aussie Aussie!' (and crowd yells back ‘Oi oi oi!’)."

The second is a song, titled “The Vasectomy Song,” by Aussie country singer-songwriter John Williamson. This song (and many of Williamson’s other songs) epitomizes the Australian attitude and outlook on life. You gotta’ love Australia!: "The Vasectomy Song"

Mission: Find Bats and Clean Ancient Fossils

This past weekend Chris and I had a fun adventure into several of the caves in the nearby area. Steve Bourne took us around to the caves during the day to see if the Southern Bent-wings were using them as day roosts. My nightly emergence counts have shown that the night-to-night numbers fluctuate quite a bit. One night I may count 35,000 bats, the next night 30,000, and the next night 25,000, and then the numbers jump up again. Obviously the bats aren’t dying, so this suggests that the bats are moving around between the maternity colony at Bat Cave and other caves in the area. We had previously thought that once the bats congregate at Bat Cave for the summer breeding season, they stay there until they disperse for the winter. This might not be the case.

Steve took us to three caves, all within a 30 minute drive of the park. Our first stop was an old mining area. We scrambled down the loose gravel slope (the whole while I was thinking, “Please don’t have a repeat of my knee debacle.”) and then up the other side to look for a bed of 1-2 million year old oyster shells that had been uncovered. We couldn’t find the bed, but we did find one lonely oyster shell.

Heading down into the mine.

 The separation in deposits between the old limestone (solid bottom rock) and the Pleistocene Bridgewater Formation that occurred about 12,000-126,000 years ago (the looser rock at top).

 

A 1-2 million year old oyster shell.

We then continued on to our first cave, Joanna Bat Cave. After about 20 minutes of searching in the grassy woodland for the cave entrance, we finally found it and prepared to go in.

Preparing to enter Joanna Bat Cave.

Once inside, we looked up at the ceiling and along the walls for any roosting bats. We also looked for fresh guano. We found a total of four bats. There were a few piles of old guano from when the bats have used the cave during the winter, but there was no fresh guano.

Two of four Southern Bent-wing Bats roosting in Joanna Bat Cave.

Looking up at the bats roosting in the hole.

Our next stop was Robertson Cave, which was a much bigger cave with two main chambers: one close to the entrance hole that was fairly sunlit and another chamber that you had to crawl through a 2-3 meter hole to get into. We found 14 bats, all in the second chamber. People used to mine limestone out of the second chamber through a big hole in the ceiling. Steve and others installed a metal roof to cover the hole in hopes that the bats would begin using the cave as a maternity cave again. Some believe that the cave used to be a maternity cave, although Steve doubts it as there are no huge guano piles that should be present if it used to be a maternity cave. While the bats aren’t using it for that purpose now, they still use the cave as an important over-wintering site. However, once the fence separating the two chambers was installed to keep people out, the numbers of bats using the cave during the winter decreased from 6,000-7,000 to a few hundred. Apparently Southern Bent-wings are very sensitive to gates and obstructions over their cave entrances. 

 

Probably the neatest cave art/graffiti I’ve ever seen.

The third “cave” we visited was actually a side chamber, called Robertson’s Chamber, off the tourist path in Blanche Cave. Bats like to go there after they emerge from Bat Cave in the evening, perhaps to get some water from the wet stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Again, there were no bats there, but Steve informed us that that chamber was where all the sounds from James Cameron’s movie “Sanctum” were recorded. Apparently the movie people contacted Steve asking where there was a cave with good acoustics, and Steve suggested this chamber. So all the footsteps, carabiner clanking, etc. that you hear in that movie were filmed here at Naracoorte Caves National Park. Now I have to go watch the movie!

Our fourth and final cave visit was to Cave Park Cave, at which we had to fight our way through thick, extremely prickly blackberry bushes. Ouch!

 

Watching Cath blaze the way through the prickly blackberry bushes into Cave Park Cave.

We didn’t find any bats inside, but our foray into the prickliness of the blackberries was well rewarded once we came out. Near the cave entrance was a large patch of blackberries, ripe and ready to be picked, and eaten! We spent a few minutes collecting handfuls of the juicy fruit, although mine didn’t last very long. I must say they were hands down the BEST blackberries I’ve ever had. It was a fantastic way to end our fun caving expedition.

A sweet reward!

However, the day was not over yet! We went back to the “Fossil Lab” in the park to help Steve and Cath wash and dry the bags of dirt and fossils they had taken from the cave dig site a few days before. We helped them haul the bags up from the cave into Steve’s car (and despite the fact that the bags are relatively small, the dirt is very compact and quite heavy!), then from Steve’s car to the washing trough. We then dumped each bag into a sifter and washed the dirt out, leaving only the bones/fossils. 

 

The bags of dirt from the cave dig site are dumped into the sifters, which go in the trough full of water.

We then gently shake the sifters to get the dirt out.

After getting most of the dirt out, we take the sifters out of the trough and give the bones a final rinse with the hose, and then we let them dry in the sifters for a few minutes. Once the bones are dry enough, we transfer them into pans to finish drying in the sun. Because it’s been so hot out the bones don’t take long to dry.

One last rinse of the remaining fossils.

The fossils then partially dry in the sun in the sifters before we transfer them to pans to finish drying.

The final step (which Chris and I didn’t help with because the fossils weren’t dry enough by the time we left) is to sort the fossils and identify and catalogue everything. I’m not sure how much help I would have been with that task even if we had helped! So maybe it was a good idea that Chris and I just got to be free manual labor for the day. I got good exercise and got to see another field of science in action!

Sorted and identified fossils.

Parting words of wisdom.

I'm a Scientist!

The other night while we were setting up the cameras at the cave, we heard the tour group, led by Frank (one of the park guides), pass by further up the path. I overheard Frank say to the group, “And down there at the cave Kristen the scientist is setting up her cameras.” Cool, I’ve never been called a scientist before!

That’s me, the scientist!

No wait, this is more like it.

Filming of “The Expendables 2” Causes Disturbance to Bats in Devetashka Cave

Yet another hit to bats. The filming of "The Expendables 2" in Devetashka Cave in Bulgaria (which included loud construction work and brush-clearing) seriously disturbed the bat species hibernating there, two of which are endangered (see link to full article below). The filming was allowed despite the fact that the cave is one of Europe's most important bat hibernation sites and that Bulgarian legislation only allows for activities related to tourism or scientific research to take place at the site. Could they not have found somewhere else to film? I have never been much of an “activist,” but this seriously angers me. I will DEFINITELY not go see "The Expendables 2.” I know in the end that that doesn’t really “do” anything to help, but at least I won’t be giving money to go see a movie that had such a negative impact on bats. 

Bat Conservation International article: "Bats in the News - Hollywood vs. Bats in Bulgaria" 

 

If this upsets you as much as it does me, you can show your disapproval of the situation by not going to see the movie. You can also write to the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Water to express your disappointment in their lack of judgment in this case (see link below). What an unfortunate situation, and one that I hope can be avoided in the future.

 

Message from Alexey Zhalov, Vice Delegate of Bulgaria & Vice Secretary General of European Speleological Federation  

Texas Farm Bureau Video: “Nature’s Pest Controller”

I was looking through old emails and found this video that the Texas Farm Bureau did on Liz Braun de Torrez’s bat research in Texas pecan orchards (the work I helped with for two summers as an undergrad and that led to my Senior Honors Thesis work with bat houses). I thought I’d share so you can see the neat work Liz is doing. This is especially relevant after my last posting about the bat death toll from White-nose Syndrome.

The overall goal of Liz’s project is to understand the ecological (and potential economic) role of bats in a Texas pecan agroecosystem. We lived and worked in an organic pecan orchard owned by John and Jimma Byrd. Several years ago John installed three bat houses on his property in an attempt to attract more bats to his orchard, and I installed nine more during my thesis work. Liz’s work has shown that some of these bats do eat the pecan nut casebearer (Acrobasis nuxvorella) moth, one of the most devastating nut-feeding insects that occur in pecans. The bats act as natural pest control agents and therefore reduce the need for expensive and often unnecessary pesticides. Scientists have estimated that bats save farmers between $3.7 billion and $53 billion per year on pesticides that did not have to be used on crops like corn, cotton, vegetables, and fruit because of the help bats give. So in addition to being very ecologically important (they keep insects like pesky mosquitoes in check) they are also economically important. One more reason to have bats around!

YouTube video: "Nature's Pest Controller" 

For ways to help support bats and bat conservation, see my previous blog post at:

http://wingingitinoz.blogspot.com/2012/01/us-bats-need-our-help.html

 The Texas Farm Bureau crew filming Liz and me setting up a triple-high mist net (triple-high mist nets are three regular 10 foot high nets strung one on top of the other so the total height is 30 feet). 

 

Liz and I checking one of the Anabats. An Anabat is an acoustic detector that records bats’ echolocation calls. You can then look at the calls with the Anabat software and determine what species made the call (although there’s a lot of debate about how accurate call identification is). Or you can just look at the number of calls per night to get an index of bat activity in an area, regardless of species. Liz was comparing bat activity between conventional orchards, organic orchards, and natural sites (with natural Texas vegetation). 

 

Two of my bat houses in John’s orchard (the ones that were in the video). The one on the left is a standard bat house, while the one on the right is a “rocket box,” built around a single pole. The bats seem to prefer the rocket box. Here I’m collecting guano from my fancy guano collection tarps and bins. The more guano under the houses, the more bats are present. 

Looking up into one of the rocket boxes. Yes, those are bats! Evening Bats (Nycticeius humeralis) to be specific. They moved into the houses only days after I put them up, and they even used a few of them as maternity colonies. I cannot even express my elation at the houses’ success!

 A close-up of the bats in the house.

U.S. Bats Need Our Help!

Today I received a devastating email from Bat Conservation International’s Executive Director, Nina Fascione, saying that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has now raised the U.S. bat death toll from White-nose Syndrome to between 5.7 and 6.7 million bats. Previous estimates were at 1 million bats. This is the email I received:

“Dear BCI Members and friends.

I’m writing today with tragic news about White-nose Syndrome (WNS), the disease that has been decimating North American bat populations for the past six years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that White-nose Syndrome has now killed more than 5.7 million bats. The new estimate, which some biologist believe might be conservative, ranges up to 6.7 million.

Given the many heart-wrenching photos of dead bats covering the frozen floors of caves, we suspected the number of fatalities would be high.  But it is still disheartening to have our worst fears confirmed. We hope this news will help the public and federal officials understand the vast scope of this wildlife crisis and the urgent need for funding.

If WNS continues to take such a huge toll, the environmental and economic costs will be enormous.

BCI continues to lead efforts to combat this disease.

You can help by donating to BCI’s White-nose Syndrome program and other conservation efforts.  Your gift will help make sure bats are around for future generations.

Warm Wishes,                                  
Nina Fascione
Executive Director
Bat Conservation International”

I was so horrified to read this news, and while it is extremely disheartening, it also provides great motivation to learn more about bats and WNS and get involved with bat conservation.

 

The fungus that causes White-nose Syndrome (Geomyces destructans) irritates the bats’ skin and causes them to wake up during hibernation, which depletes their fat reserves that get them through the winter. The affected bats often fly outside their cave during the day in the middle of winter. They often freeze or starve to death.

Another bat covered with the fungus.

The floor of this cave is littered with bat carcasses. The bats died from WNS.

The following links provide more information about the current WNS crisis and the fungus/disease itself:

Press Release, Center for Biological Diversity: “Scientists Estimate Up to 6.7 Million Bats Dead From Fast-spreading Disease” 

Bat Conservation International’s (BCI) webpage about White-nose Syndrome 

Want to help support bats and bat conservation? Here are some easy ways to get involved:

1. Join Bat Conservation International! Student, Senior, and Educator memberships are $30/year, while the Basic membership is $35/year. All members receive the BATS Magazine, a quarterly publication on bat research, bats in the news, etc. The money goes to support the organization and bat research and conservation. Definitely worth the money!   Become a member now.
2. Make a donation to BCI to help bats.  Donate now!
3. Contact your state Representatives and Congressmen and women and urge them to support funding for White-nose Syndrome research. BCI’s Contact Congress/Representatives Form: Support Funding to Stop White-nose Syndrome
4. Join the cause on Facebook. Join now. 

I hope you will take the time to show your support for bats, even if that just means donating $5 to BCI or joining BCI’s cause on Facebook, or even just spreading the word to your friends. All actions are important as we strive to keep bats an important and amazing part of our world.

Stepping in to Help the Bats

After the incident this weekend with the pup hitting the fence and breaking its wing, we decided to try to prevent that from happening again. On Sunday night we secured tarps and sheets over the fence (with lots of clothes pins, twine, and safety pins!) to make it more visible to the bats and to provide a somewhat softer surface in case they did hit. The number of hits went down from 20-30 the past few days to only 3 on Sunday night, and none of the bats were injured. It looked like our idea worked! We’ll keep the contraption up for maybe a week or so, which will give enough time for the pups to learn that the fence is there so they can better avoid it.

 

Our field setup, complete with tarps covering the fence. The thermal imaging camera is the little thing on top of the silver box (on the ground), which is connected via lots of cables to a camcorder and then to the laptop/external hard drive. Each night’s emergence, once analyzed, takes about 17GB of memory. I have already filled up almost an entire 1 terabyte hard drive. Yikes!

The tarps make the fence more visible to the bats' echolocation and also provide somewhat of a cushion if they hit.

Plans are also in the works to move the fence back away from the cave mouth quite a bit, so once that gets done hopefully the bats will have enough time to see the fence and steer around it. The end goal is obviously to reduce the number of hits on the fence and reduce injury to the bats.

A Trip to the Vet

The pups have finally started to come out of the cave! They are 7 weeks old now, which is the age at which they normally start flying. We noticed over the past week or so that they were flying within the cave, but weren’t yet coming out at night. We think maybe the within-cave flying is for practice. Another neat thing that has occasionally been observed is a mom transferring liquid, by mouth, to her pup when the pup is about 7 weeks old. We’re not quite sure what’s going on, but we think she may be transferring liquid that contains essential enzymes to help the pup switch from a milk diet to an insect diet before it starts feeding on its own. Over the 2000-2001 breeding season, Steve Bourne, the former park manager and pretty much THE expert on Southern Bent-wing Bats, recorded over 50 hours of video of the pup creche using the infrared cameras inside the cave. Soon I will be going through all that footage to watch for behaviors like the liquid transfer so we can better understand mother-pup interactions.

Since the past several nights have been the first few times that the pups have been flying out of the cave, they are still learning how to fly and are still learning the terrain around the cave. Because of this, we have been hearing a lot more bats hitting the fence around the cave. In a normal night (before the pups started flying) we’d hear maybe five hits a night, or sometimes none. The adults are used to the fence and know how to avoid hitting it. However, over the past few nights we have heard over 20 hits per night. In addition, we have never seen an adult actually get injured from hitting the fence. Occasionally they get stunned for a few seconds, but they recover and fly off. Unfortunately, on Saturday night we heard a bat hit and then heard it flapping on the ground. It didn’t fly away after a few seconds, so I picked it up to check it. It was a pup and sure enough, it had broken its wing. The bone was sticking out of the arm and it was bleeding quite a lot. I knew the best thing to do was to put it down, as a microbat like this with a broken wing will most likely never fly again and will certainly never be able to live in the wild again. However, I’m not trained in euthanizing bats (one accepted way is by cervical dislocation, in which you basically break its neck), and I’ve never even seen it done. I didn’t want to cause the bat more suffering by botching an attempt, so we took it home and let it go into torpor in the fridge until the morning, at which point we took it to the vet. He said he could attempt to fix the wing, but I decided that putting it down would be the best option, as trying to fix it would only cause it more pain and the chances of it working were very slim. It was a tough decision and definitely one I wish I didn’t have to make, but I feel it was the best option. The vet put it down gently and we took it home (it joined the two other bats in our freezer) so Terry can take it to the South Australian Museum. At least its death can be useful to science and not a total waste.

While we were at the vet clinic, I heard lots of mewing from another room. The vet said they have some stray kittens up for adoption. Of course I had to go see them. I fell in love with a little black and white girl, who was super affectionate. Her neighbor, a spotted gray girl, was very jealous of all the attention I was giving her neighbor, so Chris petted that one. The vet had to give eye drops to the black and white one, so he let me hold her while he did it. It felt SO great to hold an animal. I realized then just how much I miss contact with pets, and how much I definitely want to have pets when I have a “real” life. Of course we couldn’t get the kittens, for many reasons (we live in a national park that doesn’t allow cats or dogs, I’m going back to the US at the end of the year, quarantine would be a hassle/maybe expensive, I don’t have a stable home location, I plan on travelling for the next several years for jobs/grad school, etc.), but if we had I would have named mine Mittens. Mittens the kitten. If only...

Fossil Hunting

Yesterday I got to help out with the fossil dig from one of the caves in the park (Blanche Cave). On Friday (two days ago) the paleontologist and her helpers had taken out bags and bags of dirt from the dig area inside the cave, so yesterday they needed to sieve all the dirt out and dry the bones and fossils. We had to empty the bags of dirt into the sieves, wash them in a large trough of water to get most of the dirt and clay out, and then empty the sieves into cat litter boxes to let the bones and fossils dry in the sun. Once they are dried they will be sorted and identified. The paleontologist and her team have dug down to layers between 50,000-70,000 years old, which is about when the Australian megafauna went extinct. These animals include the Diprotodon (a giant wombat-like mammal about the size of a hippopotamus that is the largest marsupial currently known), Procoptodon (the giant short-faced kangaroo), and the Marsupial Lion (Thylacoleo carnifex; the largest meat-eating mammal known to have ever existed in Australia). Most of the things in the sieves yesterday were bones from recently-dead animals, like frogs, birds, rodents, etc. that have fallen into the cave or have been brought in by a predator. However, sometimes there are some really neat things to find. In one of the sieves we found a jawbone, with several teeth still intact, from a Protemnodon, which was a mammal similar to wallabies but much larger (the largest ones weigh over 240 pounds). The jawbone looked amazingly fresh and the teeth were even still shiny! It’s amazing how well caves preserve things. The caves have acted as natural pitfall traps and predator dens for over 500,000 years, which is why there are so many neat fossils and bones preserved inside. It was amazing to get to help out with the dig and see firsthand some of the fossils from the caves. Sorry, I didn’t get any pictures because I was too busy having fun and getting dirty!

 

The fossil dig in Blanche Cave. That few feet of digging goes down about 50,000-70,000 years. Pretty darn amazing.

Some of the various animals whose remains have been found in the park.

 

Dippy the Diprotodon. Apparently when they first made this and put it in the park, they strapped ropes to it and carried it by a helicopter to its place by the road. News crews came out and it was a big story. Eventually they moved it back into the park because it was distracting drivers and was an easy target for some stupid kids who shot it up.

Beware, It's Friday the 13th!

Yesterday was Friday the 13^th, so of course Chris and I had to celebrate somehow. In high school my friend Rosie and I used to dress up every Friday the 13^th and go to school like that, complete with black lipstick, all black clothes, and dark eyeliner. I carried the tradition on into college a few times and definitely got some strange looks from other students. Naturally I had to continue it here. :) After Chris and I got back from our count last night at about midnight we got all dressed up and I did our makeup. We couldn’t find black lipstick in town, so we settled for drawing black lips on with eyeliner pencil. Putting makeup on Chris was quite a fun experience, and I couldn’t stop laughing at how silly it looked. We finished off with black nail polish to complete the look. I think we did a pretty good job!

Our Friday the 13^th looks.

The dip!

 Scary good fun.

Haircut and Fire Alarms

Some exciting things have been happening in my life! Little things, but still exciting. The first update is that I got my hair cut! I saw a picture in a magazine of Katie Holmes with shoulder-length hair, and I really liked it. I’d been planning to get my hair trimmed, maybe about one or two inches. When I saw the picture I got this crazy idea: to get mine cut like that! After some careful consideration and online research (looking at pictures of people with shoulder-length hair) I convinced myself that it was time for a change. Plus it’s summer here so it will be getting hot soon and short hair would be great for keeping cool. So I went into one of the hair salons in town on Monday, with picture in hand, and did the deed. I’m quite happy with the result. It feels so light and I keep forgetting that I need a lot less shampoo now!

 My new haircut!

Another view...

And another.

In other “exciting” news, today Chris was heating rice in the microwave (EXACTLY following the directions) and about eight minutes into the 10 minute cooking time, the microwave started smoking out the side. By the time I got to it to turn it off the smoke was pouring out and the fire alarms in the bunkhouse were going off. I stood on the chair waving Chris’s Akubra hat at the smoke detector while Chris opened the microwave. Thick, yellow smoke poured out and I started to choke on it. It actually burned my lungs and my eyes, so much so that I had to go outside to catch my breath and use a wet cloth over my mouth to breathe! We put the fans on and opened the windows, and finally after 10 minutes or so the alarms stopped. Phew! Now there’s a horrible stench permeating the entire bunkhouse. Luckily nobody else is staying in the bunkhouse now, so we didn’t disturb anyone. But it was quite a heart-pounding experience! 

The burnt rice that caused such an uproar. 

Parting shot for all you spider-lovers out there.

Just Thinking...

The other night while taking a bat count a tour group came to the cave, and I started chatting with a young woman who is doing her PhD here in Australia. I'm pretty sure she mentioned being from the US, at which point I suddenly realized that I hadn't picked up her American accent the whole time we'd been talking. After she left I thought about it and I guess even though I'm surrounded by people with Australian accents, and therefore that should be the "norm" to me, my mind still considers American accents the "norm" and Australian accents as novel. Funny how the mind works!

This then led me to thinking about what I'm going to do after my Fulbright is over and where I want to go to grad school. I've tossed around the idea of staying and studying here in Australia (I had considered this option even before I knew I had received the Fulbright), but at this point I'm not sure. I still don't know exactly what I want to study. Of course the general topic will be bat ecology/conservation, but there are so many possibilities within that general topic and I could really end up anywhere. I also don't know if I really want to commit to being away from home and my family for so long. If I do end up in the US I doubt it will be very close to home, but at least I wouldn't be half a world away. But then again, I do love it here and I think I could see myself living here. Who knows at this point? I guess I have a bit to figure things out...

Girl Scouts Helping Bats

I read this article about two New Jersey Girl Scouts installing bat houses to earn their Silver Award. It brought back memories of my Silver Award, in which I also installed bat houses. It's great to see other Girl Scouts getting interested in and involved with bat projects! Just thought I would share:

Two Local Girl Scouts Solve Bat Problem at Gabreil Daveis Tavern

Welcome to 2012, Aussie Style!

Happy 2012 to everyone! Boy has this past year gone so fast! I graduated from college in May, spent an all-too-short summer with friends and family at home, and have been in Australia for four months. Time sure flies when you’re having fun!

My first holiday season away from home has also come and gone. Christmas in Adelaide with Chris and his family was a blast, although it never quite felt like Christmas and I never did get that “Christmas feeling.” Someone commented to me that it’s probably because I’m getting older, which I do partly agree with (of course Christmas now doesn’t feel quite the same as it did when I was a kid) but the biggest contributor to the lack of Christmas feeling was the temperature. While Christmas day was “cool” (in the low 70s) and overcast, the rest of our time in Adelaide was pretty warm, and now it’s in the mid-90s. Definitely not my typical Christmas! Plus, there wasn’t really any radio station that played non-stop Christmas music all month long, like Warm98 does back home in Cincinnati. That was a huge bummer.

Despite all this, I did have a wonderful time with Chris and his family, and I still thoroughly enjoyed my favorite holiday. It was so nice to spend Christmas with a family, even if it wasn’t my family. On Christmas morning we all gathered downstairs in our PJs to unwrap our presents. Chris’s mom (or should I say Santa) gave us all giant pillow case stockings full of gifts. I got some pretty awesome stuff: an Australia t-shirt, an Australia beach towel, an Australia hat, an Australian Christmas book (“Six White Boomers”), an Australian Christmas movie, and some typical Australian chocolates. Sense a theme here? I couldn’t have asked for better stocking stuffers! Chris got me a lovely silver bat necklace on a silver chain with matching stud earrings, as well as a “K” necklace with opal inlay. Wonderful gifts from a wonderful boyfriend. :)

 

My Australian-themed stocking gifts (no, that’s not my hairy leg).

On Christmas Day we had a delicious lunch/dinner, homecooked by Chris’s mom. We had ham, turkey, stuffing, roast vegetables, rolls, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. I think it’s interesting how every family has their traditional food for the holidays. Our meal was different from what we have back home, and the tastes were different, but everything was scrumptious! 

 

With Chris’s family for Christmas Day lunch/dinner. Still in our PJs.

On Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), Chris, his mom, and I went out to visit Chris’s grandparents in Cunliffe on the Yorke Peninsula about 1 ½ hours drive from Adelaide. Sitting around talking to his grandparents and aunts and listening to their stories brought back memories of home and our family get-togethers, one of the things I miss the most. It was a good day of relaxing, chatting, and eating yummy Christmas leftovers, including pavlova (an Australian/New Zealand meringue-based dessert with fruit topping), ginger Guinness cake, a gingerbread house, and Christmas pudding, none of which I had had before. All of it was so good!

On Tuesday we mostly lazed around watching movies all day, and on Wednesday Chris and I went back into the city and walked around some more. We stopped back at the pet shop where we had seen the cute puppy so I could get the rats out this time. Last time when I asked the lady if I could hold the rats she said she couldn’t get them out because she was afraid of them, and all the other employees were busy. I was so excited to finally play with them, and lo and behold they were all gone! The lady said they had all been bought and that the store wouldn’t get more until the New Year. Slighted yet again! On Thursday before we headed home we stopped at Waterfall Gully outside of Adelaide to hike up the big hills. We made it less than half the way up (the trail is about 3.7 km one way and very steep) due to time constraints and my sore knee that occasionally acted up, but the parts we did see were beautiful. There were several waterfalls and lots of greenery and amazing views. It was a nice way to wrap up my time in Adelaide for Christmas.

 

Waterfall Gully outside Adelaide

 

At the falls with Chris

New Years came up quickly the next weekend, and Chris and I celebrated New Year’s Eve by camping outside Bat Cave to take an all-night bat count, watching a movie, and ringing in the New Year with a nice ($8) bottle of bubbly white wine. Definitely not a New Year's Eve I'll soon forget!

 

Ringing in the New Year in true biologist style!