Works of Art

Last weekend was another one full of local flavor. On Friday Chris and I headed to the Mt. Gambier Gold Cup horse races and met up with Cath. I was a bit worried about the weather, as the forecast called for rain. However, it turned out to be a lovely, sunny day. Perfect for a day out. I was excited to watch the Fashions on the Field competition as a spectator instead of a participant. No pressure this time! There were definitely some amazing outfits among the women, as well as some “interesting” outfits on the guys...I bet on a horse in one of the races, which ended up coming second-to-last. Ah well, I only lost $4. 

Chris and me at the Mt. Gambier Gold Cup.

 Cath and me dressed for the races.

 

The most “interestingly-dressed” entrants in the Fashions on the Field competition. Wow, paisley silk suits. Impressive. 

 

And leopard print hair.

 

So exciting!

The next day Chris and I participated in a “barrelhead to art” painting workshop that was part of the Penola Coonawarra Arts Festival. We drove to a local winery, the Bowen Estate, and joined about 15 others in the wine storage area to create our own masterpieces with wine barrelheads as our canvases. A local artist served as our instructor, and she came around to help us get started and to give pointers. We began with a glass of wine (at 10:00am) and an empty canvas and were encouraged to be creative in our paintings. It was clear to me (and I’m sure to everyone else) that I was the least experienced painter in the room. I began with one idea in mind and quickly changed it when I realized I had no idea how to go about accomplishing my first vision. So I ended up painting one of my typical “Mickey Mouse” bats, as Chris calls them, (surprise surprise) and decorating the background with splashes of paint. Chris had brought in some photos of Ghost Bats, his favorite species of bat, to work from, and he ended up with an amazing painting. One of the winery staff came around and commented that it was clear it wasn’t Chris’ first time working with a paint brush. (It wasn’t: Chris is quite a good painter.)  My painting elicited no such comment. I guess I’ll have to leave the creative stuff to Chris. Below are some photos of our work, as well as the finished pieces of some of the other participants, so you can compare and see why I felt a little out of my league: 

 With our almost-finished barrelhead paintings.

...portrait...

 ...cute dog under the moon...

 ...storm clouds over the ocean...

...my favorite of the other participants' paintings: a Willy Wagtail and its reflection...

...Chris' Ghost Bat...

...and finally mine.

Despite my lack of painting skills, I had a great time creating my masterpiece. All the pieces are now on display at the winery until the end of this week as part of the art festival. When it’s over we’ll pick them up and they’ll be ours to keep. Now we just have to figure out what to do with them...

After our workshop, we headed to the Blok, another local winery, to have some of their delicious fresh scones with handmade jam. Throughout the building there are beautiful paintings of the Australian landscape painted by the owner’s brother, Wayne Trotter. When Wayne was 21 he lost his leg in a car accident and he has since used art to express himself. He sells his artwork in the winery and is about to put some pieces on display in galleries in Geelong and Melbourne. Chris and I spoke with the owner, Gary, about Wayne’s work. He told us that Wayne chooses different materials to paint on, like wood, foam board, and canvas, and that he chooses the frames for all his framed pieces. I had been eyeing a piece since Cath first took me to the winery when I got here back in September, but was hesitant to purchase it. Chris offered to go halvsies with me, so we bought it together. It now hangs in our kitchen, oddly out of place in our bunkhouse room. I can’t help but to keep looking at it and to imagine it hanging in Chris’ and my first place together. 

  The painting Chris and I bought from a local winery, titled "Drought".

Our last stop of the day was the Brand’s Laira Coonawarra winery to see an exhibit featuring artistic corsets. Some of them were quite interesting, including one that reminded me of a peacock with its blue and green colors. 

At the corset exhibit. Pretty colors!

Then we headed home along the highway lined with trees in their fall colors. For a moment I could imagine I was back home in Ohio during the fall. Oh home sweet home...

 "Security guard" outside a cafe.

 

Korean Dinner

The other night Chris and I went to our friend Jinhwa’s place for dinner, along with our friends Tom and Dannielle (both park guides). Jinhwa is a guide at the park and is from Korea. She made us a beautiful Korean dinner (I must admit I don’t remember the names of things) that made my mouth burn and my cheeks turn red hot. Wow, I haven’t had food that spicy in a long time, if ever! But it was delicious and well worth the temporary discomfort. She also showed us photos from her wedding to her husband Andrew. They had both a Western style marriage, with white dress, suits, etc., and a traditional Korean wedding, with BEAUTIFUL outfits for both the bride and groom. I kind of wish the typical wedding dress was like that. Jinhwa is returning to Korea to visit family and friends for a month, so this was our farewell dinner. I will miss her when she’s gone, as she’s one of the people I’ve gotten close to here in Australia.

After dinner it was time to feed their two lambs, one of which they had just found on the road and was only a few days old. I got to pet and feed them, and they were quite adorable! Dannielle lives on a farm with sheep, goats, cows, and emus, and she’s invited me out to check it out. Playing farm girl for a day is now on my to-do list!

We finished off the night with an oil-drum fire, and then said our farewells to Jinhwa. Have a safe trip and see you in a month!

 Andrew feeding the lambs.

My First Footy Game!

The last two weekends were full of Australian culture. I attended the annual Naracoorte Swap Meet, which is basically a giant yard sale in which members of the community bring their unwanted junk to sell off to others. I dragged Chris along despite his assertions that buying other people’s used crap is gross. How often do I get a chance to go to a yard sale that takes up the area of a high school football field? Not often, so we went. There were lots of car parts and farm machinery for sale, but I was more interested in the jewelry and trinkets. I ended up buying a Celtic knot ring (which I’ve always wanted and which I subsequently lost during harp trapping with the high school students) for $8 and a little knitted bat that I plan on giving to my new niece/nephew. 

 

Naracoorte Swap Meet. Lots of people’s junk! 

 

Haha, I should have bought this.

 

The next weekend our friend Tom, one of the park guides, took us to my first footy (Australian Rules Football) game! I had never actually watched an entire game and had only seen clips on TV. We drove out to Kybybolite, a tiny tiny town about 30 minutes from Naracoorte (so tiny that none of us had phone reception). Tom is one of those types of people who knows everyone everywhere, so he gave us the low-down on some of the players who are also his friends. He and Chris explained the rules of the game to me, most of which I kind of understood at the time and now don’t remember. All I really recall is a bunch of sweaty, buff men running around chasing and tackling each other. Not a bad sport in my opinion. It was really neat because instead of sitting in bleachers to watch, everyone sat in their cars around the field to watch (there actually were no bleachers, which is common). When our team scored a goal, we, and all the other supporters of that team, honked our horn. Haha, it was great! That day there were three games on: Juniors (up to age 18 I believe); B (the second-grade players over 18); and A (the top players over 18). We stayed for the whole B game and half the A game. It was quite an experience and I’d love to go again. Tom said we should all go to the finals coming up. I’m game! I’d also love to go to a big AFL (Australian Football League) match to get a taste of the “big leagues”.

 

Watching the footy game from the car.

On a completely unrelated note, I’ve made a few pumpkin pies in the last few weeks. Our friend Cath was staying in the bunkhouse for a few weeks while working in the area, so we made a pie using her recipe and one using my grandma’s recipe. They don’t have canned pumpkin here, which is what my grandma’s recipe called for, so we used fresh, boiled pumpkin. And it turned out great (and no strings, Mom)!

 

Here’s the proof.

  

  

Bat Trapping with the “Creekies”

Last Monday I lead a bat monitoring session with some local high school students. Earlier this year I gave some bat presentations to several classes at the high school and attended the “Creekies” meeting after school. The Creekies are a small group of students who are interested in biology and ecology and who want to participate in after-school work at the creek site behind the school. They are helping with revegetation of the creek area with native plants and are planning to build and install some bird (and possibly bat) boxes in the area. They learn all about the native flora and fauna and get hands-on experience with conservation work.

Anne Craig, the teacher in charge of the program, asked me to come out to one of their meetings and lead a bat monitoring session. Of course I said yes (of course after getting the necessary ethics permit through Terry)! I met them at 5:00 to set up a harp trap along the creek. I explained the general criteria for choosing a harp trap location. It’s best to set them up in some sort of corridor that would funnel bats, such as a vegetation corridor. We then walked around to pick a suitable spot. The area was dominated by tall gum trees with little undergrowth. Because of this, most of the bats I expected to see flying around would likely be bats that forage higher in the canopy (or above the canopy) and therefore have little chance of being caught. We therefore chose a spot in the (dry) creek bed next to a large tree and under a large overhanging branch. Bats often use landscape features such as creek beds and treelines to navigate and commute, so we had more of a chance of catching a bat here compared to the open areas along the creek. By the time we set up it was getting dark (around 5:45pm) and we could see some bats flying high overhead through the canopy. Luckily for us it was nearly a full moon, which made it bright enough to continue to see the bats silhouetted against the sky throughout the session. It was also a fairly warm night compared to the past few weeks. It is now fall here, and the daytime temperatures have been falling and averaging in the upper 50s/low 60s (Fahrenheit), with nighttime temperatures in the 40s. While this is definitely mild weather for me, the bats usually become less active on colder nights when there are few insects out. That’s why we lucked out with a warm night: a better chance of catching something!

 

Deciding where to set up the harp trap.

 

Helping the students set up their first harp trap.

 

The completed trap, set up in a dry creek bed beside a large tree.

After assembling the harp trap, we moved away and gathered to look at some bat field guides to see what species of bats we might catch. Sixteen species have been recorded in this region, 14 of which are microbat species and which we could possibly catch (the other two are megabats: the Grey-headed and Little Red Flying Foxes). A few of the more notable ones are: 

1. White-striped Freetail Bat (Tadarida australis): The echolocation calls of this bat can be heard by the human ear. They sound like a sharp “tink tink” at one tink per second. Or put another way, they sound like two 50-cent pieces (or two US quarters) clinking together. This is a high-flying species and can often be seen foraging for insects around house or field lights at night.

2. Lesser Long-eared Bat (Nyctophilus geoffroyi): A very common bat with large ears. They can catch insects mid-air (like most of the bats in the region do) or from the ground or vegetation.

3. Little Forest Bat (Vespadelus vulturnus), Southern Forest Bat (Vespadelus regulus), and Large Forest Bat (Vespadelus darlingtoni): These three species can easily be confused, but males can be told apart based on their penis shape. Kudos to whoever figured that one out!

When going through the bat species and talking about the White-striped Freetail Bat, one of the kids chimed in, “Is that the bat that sounds like two 50-cent pieces clinking together?” He had remembered my comment about that during my bat presentations to their classes over a month ago! A few minutes later, another boy commented, “I’ve seen lots of bats flying around the footy field lights at night hunting for insects.” I was so pleased that they had remembered all that and had taken what they learned in the classroom into the “real world”. It felt good to see them using the knowledge they learned during my presentations. 

 

Looking through the bat field guides to see what species of bat are in the area.

The next activity was walking around with the Anabats to listen for bats flying around. Anabats are acoustic detectors that pick up the echolocation calls of bats and convert them to a lower frequency that we can hear. We can also hear when bats are feeding by the “feeding buzzes” they use, which are a quick succession of echolocation pulses that sound like a buzz and allow the bats to hone in on an insect. Anabats, and other acoustic detectors, are used in research studies to monitor overall bat activity and foraging activity in an area. In addition, species can be identified by their calls (some species more easily than others). I wanted the students to see how Anabats work and to see them in action, so we took a walk around the creek listening for bats. Since it was a relatively warm night, there was plenty of activity and all the detectors lit up with clicks as bats flew overhead. Because of the moon, we could even see the bats flying as we heard them on the Anabats. We also heard a few feeding buzzes so we knew the bats were having some success at finding insects.

At 6:30pm we headed back over to check the harp trap. Normally with harp traps you set them up in the evening (before the bats come out) and you leave them up overnight and check them in the morning (before the sun comes up). I had never used harp traps before coming to Australia; I’ve only ever used mist nets. Harp traps are great because once the bats fall into the cloth bag, they calm down and usually end up sleeping until the researcher checks the trap. It’s a very low-stress situation compared to mist nets, in which the bats get tangled and quite stressed (which is why mist nets must be checked EVERY 10-15 minutes the entire time they’re up). If we had been doing a real survey of the bats in the area, we would have left the trap up overnight. However, I just wanted the students to see the process of setting up and taking down a harp trap, as well as possibly see some bats up close. Amazingly we did catch one bat! I hadn’t expected to catch any due to the recent cold weather and the less than ideal area for harp trapping. It was definitely icing on the cake. It was a female forest bat, probably a Little Forest Bat (Vespadelus vulturnus). It looked like she had just been caught, as she was still at the bottom of the bag and hadn’t crawled up the sides yet. She was either commuting through the creek bed or possibly hunting there. Lucky for us! We went through the standard recording procedure for bat surveys, which included recording the species, sex, age (unless a bat has been previously banded, it’s impossible to tell its “exact” age, so we determine whether it’s a juvenile, sub-adult, or adult based on the amount of fusion of the wing joints, with adults having completely fused joints), forearm length, weight, and anything else notable. One student used calipers to measure the forearm length (while I held the bat, of course) and another recorded. I also got to show them a bat fly crawling around in the bat’s fur. Bat flies are ectoparasites that have co-evolved with bats to only feed on bat blood. They are often species-specific, meaning that certain species of bat flies only live on certain species of bats. The students thought it was pretty cool.

Once we had recorded all the data, it was time to let the bat go (she’d definitely had enough excitement for one day!) and take down the harp trap. I’m still not a pro at setting up/taking down harp traps, so it took a few minutes, but with help from the students we got it done. As we walked back to our cars, they were all chattering excitedly that we should do this again. Since winter is coming and the bats go into torpor for most of it, we probably won’t do a session this term, but if I’m still around next term we might try another one then. I hope we do because I had a ton of fun and the students did too. I think there’s no better way to get people (of all ages) interested in and involved with science and nature than through direct, hands-on experience. And after seeing a bat up-close-and-personal, who would NOT love these amazing little creatures? 

 

Having a look at the bat we caught.

 

Little Forest Bat

 

Checking the wing joint to determine the bat’s age.

  

One year ago...

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, which marked one year since graduation from Ohio Wesleyan University. I can’t believe how quickly this past year has gone, and all the things I’ve done in it. This past year has been one of change, both personal and professional. I left old friends, places I love, and a comfortable college lifestyle for an unknown land on my own. I moved halfway across the world to Australia to complete a year-long U.S. Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship (and I’ve met some amazing people and seen some amazing places along the way!). I lived alone for the first time in my life and was reminded what it’s like to have to make new friends. I bought a car, and along with it both the freedom and responsibilities of owning and running a car. I’ve met an amazing guy (an Aussie!) who I am excited to bring home with me at the end of the year and introduce to my family and friends. I found out from my older brother Andrew, and my sister-in-law, Katherine, that I am going to be an aunt come October! I cemented what aspect of bats I want to focus on in grad school: I want to study the ecosystem services of bats in agricultural landscapes, including how we can get farmers to integrate bats in their pest management strategies and involved in bat conservation (with the overall aim to move towards more sustainable agricultural practices). This time last year I could only have dreamed that this is where I’d be now. And yet here I am.

This coming year holds a lot of exciting things as well. My college roommate, Sarah, is coming to visit for several weeks next month; we will be conducting a Southern Bent-wing Bat winter survey in all known caves in South East South Australia and southwest Victoria in July; I will be attending a cave bat conference in Hungary in September; and Chris and I will (hopefully) be going up north to tropical Cape York with the Australasian Bat Society to participate in the first “Bat Blitz” (a two-week long bat survey). Stay tuned to hear about these (and many other) adventures!

Article in the Journal of the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association

A few blog posts ago I mentioned that I had written an article for the Journal of the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association (ACKMA). Steve Bourne, the editor, gave me a copy of my article, so here it is if you’re interested in reading it:

ACKMA Journal article, March 2012