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.