May 1st

Where do the days go? Caught another suitable female last night, 6.3 grams and then right at dawn caught a suitable male, held for release tonight. Female roosted close (she was caught at 4:15am check, so it was close to dawn and didn't have much time to move). The catch on the 30th was the highest yet, 80+ bats, today is a really warm day up here, so things should be hopping again tonight.

The other two transmittered bats stayed in roosts, didn't even twitch much. Prior to flight the bats move around the roost or groom and the transmitter beeps change dramatically from beep to beep, but remain constantly strongest directly toward roost tree. We've been referring to this period of time as "twitching" as in "Hey John, is that bat twitching yet?". Easier to say than "Hey John, is that bat grooming or moving around the roost tree much yet?"

We think this is going to be a big night, both in numbers caught and in bat movement in the field. Bat 204's (the first one tracked) transmitter is now in overtime (10 day transmitter, tonight midnight is 11days) so we should lose it soon. Bat 207 is about 1/2 done. 208 got a slightly larger transmitter rated at 21 days so is at the very beginning. Bat 209 will be released tonight with a 10 day transmitter. It's going to be a wild few days. We are trapping through Wednesday night then no more trapping or if we catch one more suitable female, that ends trapping that night. We will do a walk through to see how many bats are left in the tunnel the day after trapping ends, currently scheduled for Thursday at around noon, so that should make a good update. Luckily the 3 foot deep lake in the entrance has subsided making the trip a fairly dry one.