Winging It in Oz: "You're a legend"

Deb held a farewell party for me at her house Friday evening. Members of the cave staff, as well as Cath, Terry, Dennis Matthews (who has been helping me with the technical stuff of my project), and Mark and Felicity from Biosis Research (who I went to Byaduk Caves with) came out to wish me a fond farewell. I held it together while Deb gave her little speech and while the group gave me their gifts (a beautiful dyed linen bag and coin purse from the guides (thank you Jinhwa for picking it out!), a bat pendant handmade by Liz Reed, the resident paleontologist here, and chocolates from Deb), but then Tom called for everyone to give me three cheers and they all yelled out, “Hip hip hooray” three times. That’s when I lost it. I couldn’t hold back the emotions. This place and these people have become my second home and second family over the past 14 months, and the thought of leaving it all behind makes me very emotional. I leave Naracoorte on Sunday, and I’ve been trying to say all my goodbyes this week. When Chris is here (he’s coming to pick me up to take me to Adelaide) we’ll have one last dinner at the Kincraig pub with all our friends. That will be a bittersweet moment...

Terry and Steve have told me numerous times that they are sad to see me go and that I need to stay at least another year to get more data (Terry fondly says to me, “You’re a legend” which he says to people he thinks highly of. I’m honored he thinks that way of me.). Recently they told me that they are going to slip some contraband in my luggage so I’d get arrested at the airport, and then they’d come bail me out and have me do community service with them (a.k.a. continue the bat project) to serve my sentence. I told them I didn’t think my parents would appreciate that, but I guess I would get to stay another year here...

Anyway, back to this past weekend. Terry, Dennis, Mark, and Felicity had come down for the weekend to test out Terry’s new marine radar, which Cath, Steve Bourne, and I joined them for early Saturday morning at Bool Lagoon. The goal of the radar is to get it to pick up small flying objects (like bats and birds) so it can be used to monitor bat activity at potential windfarm development sites. The problem with current monitoring methods at these sites is that they are typically done at ground height (or slightly higher). They don’t measure bat activity at blade height, which is what the real issue is when trying to determine the possible detrimental effects of the turbines on bats. If Terry can get this radar working, it could be a good way to see what height bats are flying at and could therefore be used in windfarm monitoring.

Terry thought it would be best to test it out on birds in the daytime when we can actually see what’s flying around and correlate that to what’s on the radar screen. This involved Terry playing with the radar settings and the rest of us spotting for birds and yelling out when they flew by. We had some success, but Terry decided he had to actually read the instructions (what is it with boys and their toys and not reading the instructions?) to get it working properly.

Dennis, Mark, and Terry setting up the radar.

Cath and Felicity on the lookout for flying birds.

While driving around Bool Lagoon and back through the park, I began thinking about how soon I will be back in southern Ohio with different vegetation and a much more suburban atmosphere. That’s when it began to really sink in that I’m leaving in less than two weeks. I don’t think it will necessarily be hard to move home, but it will be an adjustment. For one thing, I’ll be living with my parents probably until I start graduate school. I haven’t lived at home for an extended period of time since high school, so it might feel a bit strange to have to “report” to someone instead of just doing things on my own. As I mentioned above, I’ll also have to get used to a dense suburban environment again after living in a rural area for 14 months. There will also be the cultural change, since the majority of the people in Naracoorte are white and there is not the multiculturalism like there is back home. And of course I’ll have to remember to drive on the right side of the road! All of this change makes me a little nervous, but I’m sure it will be just fine.

On Saturday afternoon we met with Deb to discuss the future of the bat monitoring project as well as the bat interpretation in the park. A lot of great ideas were brought up, including automating the collection of the thermal imaging videos so that it’s easy for anyone to do, collecting all night counts so we can monitor bat activity in Bat Cave throughout the night and get more accurate emergence and fly in counts, and erecting a screen on the fence around Bat Cave that the thermal imaging video could be shown on during bat tours, just to name a few. The overall goal is to get funding to continue my monitoring project over the next several years, with a DEWNR staff member or other person permanently assigned to the project. Until then, several Friends of Naracoorte Caves members and park staff will continue the thermal imaging counts this summer so we at least have data for one more year after I leave. Last week I met up with that group to show them how to set up the cameras and run the software, and this week I met with them again and let them do it. They did amazingly well and I’m excited that they’re interested in helping out. Of course it’s a great way to collect data, but it’s also a great way to involve the community in this project.

The Friends of Naracoorte Caves folks learning how to use the thermal imaging cameras.

While Terry and the bat crew were still here, we met back up on Saturday evening outside Cathedral Cave, one of the caves on the park that currently has a thousand or so bats in it. We set the radar back up and this time tested it in the dark. We had more success than the last time, and it all looked quite cool on the computer screens! Mark and Felicity had brought their hand-held thermal imaging camera (which Terry has decided he wants to replace our cameras with) and Dennis had brought his acoustic detector. We looked like quite the sight with all our spiffy gadgets!

The radar (left) set up beside Cathedral Cave.

Terry's new toy.

Battos (as Terry calls bat researchers) and their gadgets.

Cool stuff!

Before Terry and the others left on Sunday, we had a “debriefing” about my project. I talked about the main findings of my project, which are:

1. There is a lot of fluctuation in the number of bats in Bat Cave throughout the summer. We had previously thought that once all the bats came back to Bat Cave for the summer, they all stayed there. However, the thermal counts I’ve taken show this is not the case, and that the bats are using the surrounding caves during the summer in addition to the winter. Because of the fluctuations in numbers, previous counts at Bat Cave (which were taken only one to three times per summer) are not reliable since they may have been taken at times when a significant proportion of the bats were gone. This highlights the importance of regular monitoring, over multiple years, if we want to get accurate population counts.

2. During the winter survey we found only about 15,300 bats in all the known South Australian over-wintering caves. The peak population count I got at Bat Cave during the summer was about 40,400 bats. Where are the remaining 25,100 bats? It’s possible that we don’t know about all their over-wintering caves (there are likely some sea cliff caves that we cannot access) or that they migrate farther than we currently think.

It was good to have a chat with Terry and Dennis, as they always have good ideas and suggestions. I’ve been busy writing up the results, and now I have some more stuff to add after talking with them! Terry and I are planning to meet up when I’m in Adelaide, so luckily I didn’t have to say my final goodbye to him when he left.

Andrew and his partner Tash had me over for dinner on Monday, which is something we’d been planning to do for a long time and finally got around to. I got to meet Millie, their Ring-tailed possum, and their leaf-tailed gecko. Then on Tuesday they took me out to their friend’s place, where she has rescued native wildlife. And guess what? I GOT TO HOLD A BABY WOMBAT!!! Her name was Dolly and she was four months old and absolutely adorable! What a great thing to get to do my last week in Australia!