#bats #flying #wildlife #nature #Thailand
The cave is a short 31-kilometre cycle ride from home, although the return in the darkness does feel further... I cycled there 7 times in the last month and drove once. Many years ago I did some research about the bats at a similar site further north in Thailand and it feels great to be making a connection with a bat cave again. Now it's just for my own pleasure and interest but it feels like I have been re-hooked.
A handful of tourists visit Nayang in Petchaburi province every evening to watch these wrinkle-lipped bats leave their cave around sunset. There's a viewing platform available for a small fee next to the road with the bats' cave being about 100m up a limestone hillside. From the platform (or the roadside if you are thrifty) you get a good view of the continuous stream of bats leaving the cave in a column that lasts for about 15 minutes. Sharp eyes can also pick out the hawks and falcons grabbing an occasional bat out of mid-air.
The only people who actually make the steep, rocky climb up to the cave inself are a couple who collect the bat guano to fertilise their lime tree orchard plus me. By the time the bats emerge the guano-collectors are back home cleaning themselves, so I only have to share the intimate, close-range view of their emergence with the local macaque monkeys.
With a short scrambling climb I can sit on top of a large rock that the column of bats skirts around as they head out over the surrounding paddy-fields. At this point they are within touching distance and standing up would probably earn me a slap on the side of the head from a flying bat but both bat and I prefer to avoid such collisions so I keep my head down. I can also look at the distant viewing platforms far below where those poor tourists are sitting in comfort but missing out of the pleasure of learning just how strong the smell of bats is up here!
The GIF video above is a two-second loop created from a video taken from this rock with some still frames below. I love those ghostly bat shapes.
