Always been a big fan of bats, brave little critters with seemingly massive odds stacked against them. Very energetic flight and a lot of hanging around on a diet of little bugs requires even the diminutive pipistrelle, weighing about 5 grammes, to consume as many as 3000 bugs a day (night). Given they have to do this in the dark/dusk with poor sight and a crude radar system to guide them to their prey, I have always assumed survival to be knife edge operation - I mean just how many bugs can there be to go around ?. Well judging by the state of my goggles, helmet, jacket and bike after a brief ride out of Diplovile the other evening - plenty. Our little friends have got it easy, I reckon. All they need to do is fly at 80 mph about 4ft off the ground with their little mouths wide open for 10 minutes and they'll be replete. MORE SURVIVAL !
Friday, 29 July 2011
Blind as a Bat
Always been a big fan of bats, brave little critters with seemingly massive odds stacked against them. Very energetic flight and a lot of hanging around on a diet of little bugs requires even the diminutive pipistrelle, weighing about 5 grammes, to consume as many as 3000 bugs a day (night). Given they have to do this in the dark/dusk with poor sight and a crude radar system to guide them to their prey, I have always assumed survival to be knife edge operation - I mean just how many bugs can there be to go around ?. Well judging by the state of my goggles, helmet, jacket and bike after a brief ride out of Diplovile the other evening - plenty. Our little friends have got it easy, I reckon. All they need to do is fly at 80 mph about 4ft off the ground with their little mouths wide open for 10 minutes and they'll be replete. MORE SURVIVAL !
Re. the Unmitigated blog -The connection has been made! I only found Sideburn thanks to you. Evening riding is one of the great pleasures of motorcycling don't you think? Any old iron seems to go that much better with the moisture in the air you get at dusk...must be the old water injection mularkey.
ReplyDeleteWe're luck and have bats in our garden, but not in the belfry.