Latest / Mouthy Marmots of the Olympic Peninsula / Magical autumn birds, trails and bats

Transcript

Magical autumn birds, trails and bats · Mouthy Marmots of the Olympic Peninsula

• 0:04
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the Mouthy Marmots Podcast, a show where nature lovers and neighbors discover untold wildlife and community news, find ways to enjoy and protect this beautiful area, and of course, have fun.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: I'm Carol from Port Angeles, Washington.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the dark.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: The dark of autumn.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: This episode we're welcoming the dark, and we're finding magic in autumn trails, birds, and bats.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, how much do you really know about bats?
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: We have a bat quiz for everyone.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: And an interview coming up with the Washington State Nocturnal Naturalist from Bats Northwest.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: But first, here's the magic and spookiness.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Our avian expert Iris has discovered in the forest near Port Angeles and Olympic National Park.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: And I'm gonna see if she can pass the bat quiz.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Stay tuned.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Hello, Iris.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Hey Carol, how are you?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: I'm good, but you know what?
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: I'm cold.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: And I don't know what time it is.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: It's dark, it's getting dark, it's darker and darker.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I think it's noon.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Maybe.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: All I know is we're here at Mighty Pine having a beer, so it can't be noon.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: It must be at least five o'clock.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: So we always mean at five.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And I know that it must be fall because we're both having the outrageous stout.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: We are drinking dark beer.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: In the season that it's getting darker.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: It's the magic of autumn.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: So what do you love about this season?
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: What don't I love?
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: So the first thing I love about this season is that the rain is back.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, true.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: And everything is green again.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Um the tourists have gone back to their jobs and school.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And so the trails are ours again, which I love.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Our local crow roost has reactivated.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: So this time every year, in the morning, about a hundred crows come from, I don't know, somewhere in the neighborhood of the high school, across my house and down toward the waterfront without fail, every single morning.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: And then right before sunset, so now that's right now about five o'clock, they go the other direction.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: And I don't know where they go.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: For years I've been trying to find this roost.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: If anybody knows, please tell me.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: And is that just a fall thing?
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Is it a sign of autumn?
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: It's the magical mystery of autumn.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It's a magical autumnal moment.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Like I don't notice them doing this so much in the summer, probably because they're breeding.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: And then all the juveniles, once they've fledged, tend to sort of flock together during the winter because they haven't um made it up.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: They haven't like, they're just kind of loose in the world.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: So you have these big flocks of crows.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: So to me, that says autumn.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: What else?
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: What else says autumn?
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Oozy shaggy mane mushrooms.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Those really do look like shaggy mane.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: They do, they do.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: I was up on the old ridge road, and a whole bunch of them were popping on the side of the trail.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: And a lot of them were already like, because they're ink cap mushrooms.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: And so they just sort of dissolve into this oozy, drippy black.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Ugh.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: And they were doing that.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: It was very spooky.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: And you like uh foggy, drippy trails.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I do love the foggy, drippy trails.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: To me, that says autumn.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: And the thing that always happens when I'm walking on a foggy, drippy trail is like I don't know if I'm hearing leaves falling or rain falling in the dark forest or sassquatch stepping around trying to find me, or a cougar or what?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: So I find that a little spooky.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: And you're walking on the trail, and the giant, giant, big leaf maple leaves.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like if they fall on you, they're gonna knock you out.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Even Augie, my little dog, is like, what is going on?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: It's chaos.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: It's chaos.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: But the thing I love about those leaves is that they're so huge.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's like the most appropriately named tree.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: The leaves are gigantic.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And so the other day I was walking out by the Elwa, and there were some kids, and they were picking up, like trying to find the biggest big leaf maple leaves they could find.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: And then they would stick it over their faces and be like, this one's bigger than my head.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: And one kid found one that was so big that he literally like wrapped his entire head in one leaf of a big leaf maple.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: It was really amazing.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: I can't believe how big those are.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Fall, you know, it's the coming of the dark, though.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: It's so dark.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: You know, and pretty soon once we get into December, the days are gonna be like seven hours long.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: It's just it's it's a lot.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: So you really have to like find ways to survive it.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: And for me, we like to just get out on the green trails, you know.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: So I think that's a great way to like enjoy fall and also survive these dark days.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: The dark days.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Now we're talking, we're recording this uh right around daylight savings time or nighttime savings time, depending on how you look at it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: It's the day we just we're recording this the day we changed the clocks, it's the day of the dead.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: But if we go over to Victoria, we can get back to our old time.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Because BC did not change the clocks.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I'm really jealous.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: They're liberated.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Even though the time just changed, it's autumn that you're doing winter birding.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Are you starting early?
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: See, so here's the thing Shorebird migration actually gets going in the summer.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: So we were already looking at migrating shorebirds in late July, early August.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: There are some birds that are just arriving.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: So, like, I was talking to one of my birder friends this morning and he saw some snow geese out at Three Crabs yesterday, and he was really stoked about that because he was like, My first ones are fall, snow geese.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: So, you know, always watch the flocks of cackling geese flying overhead.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Um, because sometimes you're gonna see some snow geese flying with them.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, a lot of the fall migration has kind of settled down.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: There are some things that are still arriving.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Um, but it really just feels like winter birding now, which is my favorite time here.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: We have like so many weird ducks.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: It's long-tailed ducks.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: The buffleheads just arrived.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: We were talking about how they aren't here, and you're like, when are the buffalheads gonna show up?
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And now suddenly here they are.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love buffal heads.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: They're like uh chess, I call them chessboard birds.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Because they're like half black, half white.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're just stunning on the water.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: They're so gorgeous, and also their name also feels like an insult, so I don't know.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: It's not insult the birds.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: There's no birds, there's no insults to birds.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: No insults to birds, yeah.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Good point.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: So Iris.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: This is this is the beginning of season two of the Humphy.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: I can't believe it.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: I can't believe it.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: And it was like a year ago that I we met up on the mouth of the Ella walking up there by the beach yesterday.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: And I said, Iris, I'm thinking of doing a podcast.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: And I think I said, you should.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: You should absolutely do that.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: And you said, you've always wanted to do that too.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: But I have no skills.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: So put together, skillless, we are putting together this podcast for our lovely listeners here in Port Angeles.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I can't believe it's been a year.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: It's been so much fun.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I feel like um I'm paying more attention to things that I wouldn't otherwise, like the bats.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: You know, you talking talking to the bat person in this episode.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: It's just been amazing.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: So speaking of bats, now you are the absolute bird expert of mouth humarmots.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: But I have a bat quiz for you.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I know zero about bats.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: A tune because you're going to hear a lot about bats.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: But first.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Okay, agree.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Can we dump iris?
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, dump the chump.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: First question.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm ready.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Do bats have belly buttons?
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna guess because a bat is a mammal and a belly button is an umbilical cord.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: You are so correct.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: We cannot, we cannot stump you.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: So bats are mammals, and they're carry they're carried in their mother's wombs, uh, just like humans, and they have umbilical cords.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: So bats have belly buttons.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Are they innies or outdies?
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: So far, 100%.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: We can't stump you, Iris.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Number two, when do bats mate?
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Is it like the spring?
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Is it the fall?
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Is it the summer?
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Is it winter?
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Whoa.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Good question.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: I was wondering if we even have bats here in the winter.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say they probably need some heat, and they're small, so I can't imagine their gestation is super long.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna say summer.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Summer.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Bats made in the fall.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: And then, but then the female bats store the bat sperm until child brewing time is optimal.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: So they made it in the fall, but it's gonna be in the spring.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: No.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: When they have their little bat babies.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: No way.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Wow, I never would have guessed that.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, two more questions.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: So far, you're 50-50.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: 50-50.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: The lifespan of bats are bats short-lived or long-lived?
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Gosh.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Well, how do we define short and long?
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, good question.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Um, do bats live less than 10 years, less than 20 years, or 10 to 20 years, or 20 to 40 years?
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna say in the middle, 10 to 20.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: 20 to 40.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: What?
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: That's bananas.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: The oldest, they can live for decades.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: The oldest known little brown bat was 34.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: Now I don't know how they know that little brown bat was 34 years old.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Did they tag it maybe?
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Because there are like, you know, they tag songbirds all the time.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Uh-huh.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: And things like junkos.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, you'd be surprised a junko they they'll find tag junkos that are more than 10 years old.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: That's why I said maybe 10 to 20, because I was equating it to like a junko.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Okay, last question is related to eating.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: So you should know this answer.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Better chance on this one.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: How many mosquitoes can a bat eat in an hour?
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: In an hour.
• 12:12
  unknown: God.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Would you like it?
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: A multiple choice question.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Is it uh 500 or less?
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: 500 to 1000 or 1000 to 1500.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, so.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, we're gonna assume there are a lot of mosquitoes around.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Let's say in the middle.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: B.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: You go for the middle.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: But bats are extreme.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Whoa.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I should have gone extreme because they're so old, too.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're so old.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: They get hungry.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, bats can eat up to uh 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: In one hour.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and all bats in Washington are eat insects.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: They specialize in catching night flying insects.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Night flying insects.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: Kind of like your night hawk, your bird, the nighthawk.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of mosquitoes.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: So I hope you listen to the next part of the show.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: You clearly need to.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I read in the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society that you can go out to the bridge over the Elwa on 101 at dusk, and that's a good spot to look for bats.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: So in the spring, when they're done hibernating, we have to go do that.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: So they do hibernate.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: They do hibernate.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, you just spilled the beans.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: That's in the next oh.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, everyone, stay tuned for Bat Lady.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Actually, I think Iris did pretty good with the quiz.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: I have to admit, I cheated.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: But to help us understand a little more about our friends, the bats, we're going to speak with Nikki Desautels.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: She is a nocturnal naturalist on the board of Bats Northwest.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: She's passionate about nighttime creatures.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: And her goal is to help people understand the bats world.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: She has just written a wonderful book called For the Love of Bats: Exploring Nature at Night with the West Flying Mammals.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: And it has beautiful illustrations by Anneke Wilde.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: So, Nikki, your book was just released in October, and you have a busy schedule of book talks.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: So thanks for taking the time to speak with us here in Port Angeles, Washington.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: So, what inspired you to write this book?
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been working in bat conservation and studying about conservation for several years.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: One of my goals as an educator has definitely been to raise awareness of bats in the general public.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: A lot of people just don't realize how common they are, even sometimes that they we even have them in Washington, the Pacific Northwest.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: And so this is kind of my way to reach a larger audience and write a book that is as accessible as possible for people who, you know, maybe are just kind of getting that curious or recognizing that they're a really important part of conservation in general, but don't know anything about them and want something that's kind of easy to read.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: What is it you want people to know most about bats?
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I think really how important they are, how essential they are to our ecosystems, and then to just kind of uh get the chance to overcome as many of those myths and misconceptions that are out there about bats as possible.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Um see them as something interesting and unique and not scary or you know inaccessible.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Parks Canada all week has been publicizing uh bat news and they they said there's been a study about how in areas where there's lots of bats, farmers don't have to rely as much on pesticides.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: And then with bats decimated, some bats decimated by white nose syndrome, they found that you know the farms weren't doing as well.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: I was I was really shocked to learn that.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Um yeah, bats are our number one form of natural pest control after dark.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: And a lot of insects are nocturnal, a lot of agricultural pests, forest pests, uh mosquitoes, of course, uh that carry blood-borne diseases.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And so bats are completely essential to uh the health of our food and our environment.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: There's 14 species of bats in the state.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: So out of those 14 species in Washington State, do you have a favorite?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Many of them are very cool.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're all very cool, but unique instead.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: The one I actually like the best, and this is probably because I live in the city, um, is a little bat called the California Myotas.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: It's very small.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Uh adult size, they're only about three to six grams.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And I really like them because they are very adaptable.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: And so they're found across the city, as well as being in forest habitats and you know, high deserts across the west.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: They like to use human-made trails and pathways just because they're easier to fly.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I kind of personify them a little bit and feel like they're a very spunky little bat who just doesn't care about people because after dark they will flip through our hiking trails.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Like there's nobody there and it's their world after dark.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: And how about any of the others?
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: Do they have any really interesting traits?
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Um, so on the east side of the state, we have a pallid bat, and pallid bats are very cool bats with very big ears, and so they are well known as because they like these semi-arid and desert habitats, they're well-known scorpion and centipede hunters, which is very cool.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: So they actually have resistance to the scorpion venom, and they'll land on the ground and take down a scorpion and fly off with it for dinner.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: And then we also have um what's called a hori bat.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: A hori bat is our largest bat in Washington State, and it's only got a wingspan of about 16 inches, and it weighs half an ounce.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: So it's still a pretty small insect-eating bat.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: They have these beautiful fur coats that are extra thick and dense.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Um, they've got a golden mane around their faces that's just really beautiful.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And the rest of their fur is just speckled from these kind of frosted tips, reds and browns and yellows, and it's camouflaged because they're a tree-roosting bat.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And so they are usually out exposed, hence the super dense fur coat.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: But those frosted uh white tips over all their colors kind of helps them blend into the trunks of trees.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: So when they hang from branches, it kind of disguises them as like a fall leaf or a dried-up leaf.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Just as an educator in general, and then as an author of this book, is I really wanted people to get to know individual species of bats.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Because we do this thing to bats that we don't do to a lot of other wildlife, is that we group them as a bat is a bat is a bat.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: We don't do this to birds, you know, we know our individual species, and we don't do this to other groups of animals like this.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: But I really hope people start to understand the differences between the species because they really are very different from one another.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Why why do you think bats get such a bad reputation?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: They do.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: It's getting better.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I'm meeting many more people who are either very positive about bats or at least uh curious about them, which I love.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that's centuries old.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Um humans in general are a very sight-dominant species, and it's very hard for us to understand something that is so comfortable in the dark where we are so very uncomfortable.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: And so I think, you know, if you go back in history, this idea of bats being associated with darkness or evil or the underworld goes back centuries.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: But I think it's mostly because we just don't really understand them.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And one of the things Bats Northwest tries to do for the love of bats tries to do is give people the opportunity to have positive experiences with bats by going out and observing them at sunset in the summer and getting that much more, you know, fun and peaceful interaction with them, watching them out foraging or flying at sunset is kind of a great start.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: But then really also understanding.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: So if you know, if the fear is around the erotic way they fly, when you learn about the fact that they actually fly with their hands, their wings are structured with their fingers, and kind of understand a little bit better how that that crazy flight is really incredible agility.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And I think those kinds of things, the more people learn and understand why they do what they do, can help overcome those fears.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Knowing you were gonna come on the show, Nikki, I asked listeners here in Port Angeles if they had questions for you.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: And people have lots of questions.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: So I'm gonna shuffle the cards.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Are you ready for a little QA?
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Now this is from uh Iris.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: She's our Iris, our bird expert who is uh also on the show, healthy marmot.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: She says hummingbirds go into torpor when it's in the winter and it's cold.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: How about bats?
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: How do they stay warm in winter?
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an excellent question.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Um yeah, so bats are um one of the species that also uses torpor, very similar to how hummingbirds use it.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Bats can actually use torpor on a daily basis.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: So because they are are only flying mammals, uh, they use an incredible amount of energy just you know, moving through the world, flying uh is very energy uh high energy activity.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: And so they need to eat about twenty five to fifty percent of their body weight every single night in order to offset that energy loss just from flying around and hunting.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So many bat species will uh use torpor during the day to rest and save.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Energy at the same time.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Over the winter, of course, because they're preying on night flying insects, which we don't have as it gets colder, they go into hibernation, which is a very long-term deep version of torpor to save as much energy as possible over the winter.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: They will arouse every few weeks to flush the toxins out of their body and maybe find something to drink to replace the water loss.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: So they don't just, you know, sleep for six months.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: It's pretty hard to shut your body down entirely.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: But that is what the majority of our species are doing from about now until we start to see more insect activity again in the spring.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: So it's March or April.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Next question.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: We don't have caves here.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Where do bats live?
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: Do they live in trees?
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: They do live in trees.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Our bats kind of have three different roosting styles that they use.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: We have what we call our crevice roosting bats who are looking for small openings, our cavity roosting bats who are looking for more something closer to a cave where they could be insulated inside, but still have more airflow and space to roost together.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And then what we call our foliage roosting bats.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: And so those are the ones like the hoary bat who actually roost more exposed out on tree branches or out on tree trunks.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: So most all of our bats in Washington use trees at some point in their life.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So those crevice roosting bats might be roosting under exfoliating bark or in cracks in the tree caused by lightning or rot.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Our cavity roosting bats might be using abandoned squirrel or woodpecker holes.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: And then a lot of these bats are also adapting to urban environments and using human structures that are either creating crevices like the siding or eaves of a house, or the foliage roosting bats are usually sticking to our trees and using the trunks and the branches more.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: And next question can you build a bat house?
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: And what's the difference between a bathouse and a birdhouse?
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: And will bats come if you build them a house?
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Those are all good questions.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Because of the way our bats roost, the bats that most likely will use a bathouse are those crevice roosting bats.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: And so bat houses are usually larger than bird houses.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Their openings are at the bottom and they have chambers in them.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: So a chamber would be about an inch to an inch and a half wide slot to allow those bats to get into nice cozy slots.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: So they're gonna want spaces where they can pick different temperatures.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Bat houses are great.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: They are a supplement to habitat, but I always encourage people to look into creating stronger bat habitat first.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: They won't attract bats that aren't already in the area, but bats are very good at finding them.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Thing to understand about bats, especially here in the Pacific Northwest, is they travel either solitary or in small groups, with the exception of kind of summer maternity colonies.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: And so when most people put up a bat house, they kind of expect a little bit more of a birdhouse experience where they're gonna see bats move in and their bats are gonna live there all summer.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: But in reality, our bats switch roosts even in their natural habitat every one to three days.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: So it I kind of think of them more as like an Airbnb for my bats because bat houses can be used during migration seasons, spring and fall, just for a few nights as bats move across the landscape.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: They can be used as day roosts where they do sleep all day in the bat house and then head out at night.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: They can also be used as night roosts.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: If you have a good foraging area around you, a bat might find the house in the evening and just use it to take a couple a nap.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: It can be it can be a little frustrating because a lot of people won't see that their bat house is getting used, um, but a lot of times it is.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Um the bats find it when they need it.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: And so bat houses are really great if you know that there's habitat destruction happening in your area, or you know that there's a colony and maybe an abandoned building that's going to be teared down, torn down, and then you're providing an alternative for those bats.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: But you know, if you have really great trees around, there's a good chance they'll choose those.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: And that's okay, because that's what they need.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: And last question: how can people get involved with bats uh in our area, like Olympic Peninsula?
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's great.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Honestly, the thing I always tell people if they want to help and support bats is to keep learning about them.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Bats Northwest does serve the entire Pacific Northwest, even though we're kind of headquartered in Washington, our meetings are all virtual now.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: So we do have groups of volunteers popping up around the Pacific Northwest that aren't based in Seattle, and that is allowing them to get out and do more education in more areas.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: So if that's something that you're interested in, um you can go to Bats Northwest website and you can do all of your training and onboarding from home.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: And then if take on volunteer activities and help out with, we do acoustic monitoring as well.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: We do some community science.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I think a great thing to do this winter is to read your book for the love of bats, Exploring Nature at Night with the West Flying Mammals.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Folks, you can go down to Port Book and News in Port Angeles and ask them to uh get the book.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: It's published by Mountaineers.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: A big thanks again to Bats Northwest and Nikki Day Sattels.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: In the spring, we're gonna have a great chance to hear an update on the work of all the bat studies that are happening in Olympic National Park.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: The lead researcher will be speaking at the library as part of the parks uh perspective series, Held Each Winter and Spring.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the big dark is coming.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: But one thing we can all do is keep our skies dark at night.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: There's a new group in town, Dark Sky Olympic Peninsula, and they aim to do just that.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: And we can also, all of us buy more native plants.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Clown Conservation District.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: Native Plant Sale is on.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: And we have a chance also to save our Legacy Forest.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: The Elf Legacy Forest Coalition is lots of action this fall.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Finally, don't be in the dark alone.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: Pharaoh Marine Life Center is starting up its crochet series.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Sign up to learn how to crochet a jellyfish ornament.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Now they've also done nudibraining, they've done octopus, but this year they're starting with the jellyfish.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: The pool always has Thanksgiving craziness, and our library, Port Angels Library, is having a jigsaw puzzle contest at swap this November.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's the big dark, but we'll shine some lights together.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Enjoy your day.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: The Mountie Marmotts Collective acknowledges that the lands we broadcast from are the appropriated homelands of six tribal nations who continue to care for this region today, including the Ho, Jamestown Sklalam, Lower Elwa Klallam, Macah, Quileute, and Quinault tribes.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: Thank you.