C'MON, BRING THE NOISE

A few nights back, not long after sundown, whilst sitting under my Manchurian Pear with a chilled glass of NZ sauvignon blanc, I heard what sounded like the sky being momentarily ripped. Years back, in the Devil's Coach House at Jenolan Caves (one of the most spellbinding places in New South Wales; dream stuff straight out of Gothic lit and Romanticism) I heard exactly the same noise, several times on dusk, whilst awaiting a Sooty Owl's arrival from its Nettle Cave roost. A couple of years ago, the same noise visited me once again, out near Fitzroy Falls. Its a peculiar sound, a sound I've never been able to categorise. Until now. Directly after the noise the other night, a microbat about the size of a Tree Martin, showed itself against the pale western sky and twisted away from me! So, the furiously flapping wings of a microbat when manoeuvring. As to the species, well that's another question. Months ago, I put up a post announcing that I had a microbat living in the pergola. Well that bat didn't hang around for long after that post. An enormous huntsman appeared one night close to the bat's roost entrance. I wonder whether the huntsman did the bat in. LJ, November 1 2012.