Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Flying Foxes!

Back to the Australia posts for a bit here... Sydney Royal Botanical Gardens, a wonderful oasis seated right next to the famous Opera House, also happens to be home to a large colony of Grey-headed Flying Foxes. If you've ever watched more than an hour of Animal Planet, you've likely seen some species of Flying Fox portrayed. Being the largest of the bats, they are charismatic, a bit scary-looking, and insanely cool looking. They are also harmless and eat things like fruit, pollen, and nectar. Flying Foxes are prominent pollinators as well. I'll admit this. I didn't know Flying Foxes were found in Australia until we got there, but I'm glad they were. We had the chance to see some flying back and forth from their roost and even making some noises. Supposedly they smell pretty bad. The wind must have been blowing in the right direction because we didn't smell anything! Enjoy the pics.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Utterly fantastic pics. My students learned about bats this week and we had a bat rehabilitator come in and speak to us with a few bats for the kids to see. Your Flying Foxes are amazing!

Anonymous said...

Supposedly?!?

I've been to the BG in Sydney and seen that self same colony of foxes and it absolutely reeked when I was there.

Patrick B. said...

Then I consider us quite lucky Tai!

EN, that must have been cool for the kids to see. I love bats.

Rick Wright said...

OH WOW!!

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

Dang!

Larry said...

Outstanding! I'd love to see those
myself.-They look pretty darned big for bats.