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!