Recording with bats...

[Armistice]

So I was just doing some detailed work on the backing vocals of the last tune, and while I knew it was happening (bats making noises) when I was recording, I thought I'd gotten away with it - and indeed I had, because there was no actual bat screeching during singing, just a bit now and then in the silences...

I know we all have our particular issues with incidental noise, but I'm guessing not many of you (apart from ray perhaps but he doesn't record vocals much) would have bats to worry about.

Where I live there are four giant fig trees in a row, the last being just outside my apartment - the trees are taller than the 5 story apartment block and have been there for about a hundred years.

Naturally, it being Australia, where all animals are wrong, I'm not talking about tiny little squeaky things, I'm talking about megabats (that's their official designation in the bat hierachy) which we know and love by the name of flying foxes.

grey_headed_flying_fox.jpg

An adult is probably 3 to 4 ft wingtip to wingtip - and I have a nest of the noisy fuckers just outside my bedroom, munching away on figs and getting in the way of my recordings.

It's quite funny when we get overseas visitors - we locals just take them for granted - but if you're outside at dusk, at some stage you're going to see a huge bat go swooping past - there's this classic WTF was that? reaction from people who haven't seen them before - and then a couple of dozen of them go past, and you can hear the woosh of their wings as they get quite close. And out come the cameras...

Anyway here's what they sound like - and this is only one or two - get a tribe happening and they can be deafening...
[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc1wUKIxwSQ[/BBvideo]

[Bubba]

That bat looks like it has 20mm cannon on each wing.

[JD01]

He's quite cute actually. I wonder if he'd keep the slugs off my courgettes.

[vomitHatSteve]

So they're huge bats, but they're herbivorous? What's the catch? How will they kill you?

[Greg_L]

Nope. I aint having no bats that big around me. This is Texas, and I don't do it often, but I will summon Texas Greg and those things will be extinct.

[WhiskeyJack]

I like bats. bats are cute and awesome. the very first time in my life that i ever stood up to an employer and told them to get proper fucked was when they told me to use air freshener to kill a bat that got in the warehouse. fuck that shit. she was irate casue her daughters were in the throws of cardiac arrest they were so terrified of this bat. they all wanted it dead. bats in nova Scotia at best might have an 8inch wing span. Literally a flying mouse.

she had the balls to wave my employment over my head.

I just gathered it up in a box (not easily as they are swift little fuckers) and fed it a spider and took it off to the woods on my lunch break.

Armi i am expecting photos of the ones that live in your trees. I wanna see them. pictures are always better when you know the source.

[WhiskeyJack]

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFf_3a3pkmk[/BBvideo]

[Armistice]

So they're huge bats, but they're herbivorous? What's the catch? How will they kill you?

Have a look at the last frame of WJ's video...

No but seriously, they can transmit lyssavirus which is sort of a variant of rabies I believe. From their droppings - not intentionally. People have died, but not many. I love them, I reckon they're awesome critters... it's just gone 6am and it's still dark and there's one chirping away outside still.

[Armistice]

I like bats. bats are cute and awesome. the very first time in my life that i ever stood up to an employer and told them to get proper fucked was when they told me to use air freshener to kill a bat that got in the warehouse. fuck that shit. she was irate casue her daughters were in the throws of cardiac arrest they were so terrified of this bat. they all wanted it dead. bats in nova Scotia at best might have an 8inch wing span. Literally a flying mouse.

she had the balls to wave my employment over my head.

I just gathered it up in a box (not easily as they are swift little fuckers) and fed it a spider and took it off to the woods on my lunch break.

Armi i am expecting photos of the ones that live in your trees. I wanna see them. pictures are always better when you know the source.

That would be difficult - it's rare to see them during the day and it's winter - you'll see them swoop past at night sometimes, but that doesn't make a good photo - they're asleep during the day and the trees are huge so they're well and truly bundled up in the middle somewhere.

[Armistice]

He's quite cute actually. I wonder if he'd keep the slugs off my courgettes.

He'd eat your courgettes - they're otherwise known as fruit bats - so yes, a courgette isn't a fruit but it's a vegetable and they're not that fussy.
Anyone who grows fruit near where there are bats will have great big nets over the trees once they're in fruit, to keep the buggers off.

[rayc]

I'd much rather fruities than Sulphur Crested Cockavandals.
Every few years the vandals set up a roost in the tree beside our place & life at dusk and dawn becomes hell until they move on.

[Bubba]

Bats get really bad press. Why would anybody hate them?

[Greg_L]

Bats get really bad press. Why would anybody hate them?

Because they're fucking gross as shit. They're flying rats. Lol. I don't hate them, but I don't want to be around them. Bat shit is horrible stuff.

[Tadpui]

Holy crap Armi, that thing is a house cat with wings! I don't mind bats flying around, as long as they stick to their own business. As soon as one comes into my personal space, I'll...well...I'll scream like a little girl and flail my hands around in self-defense.

[Greg_L]

There's a bridge here in Houston where every single night as the sun goes down bajillions of bats swarm out and do whatever it is that bats do. There's so many you can't even single out one bat to pay attention to. It's a swarm of bats. Bats fucking everywhere. It's pretty cool. They're little so it's not too freaky....besides it being as many bats as stars in the universe.

[Armistice]

I'd much rather fruities than Sulphur Crested Cockavandals.
Every few years the vandals set up a roost in the tree beside our place & life at dusk and dawn becomes hell until they move on.

I was up at Turramurra looking at a few houses with the GF a couple of weekends ago and went down a quiet street and there must have been 200 cockatoos sitting on the road feasting on whatever had fallen from the tree.

And they weren't going to move. I drove right up to them, expecting them to fly away, but nope. This was their street! I had to inch the car through them and eventually they'd shuffle out of the way. No flying... they'd just wsddled to the side. It was completely surreal.

[Bubba]

See the streaming thread in Newbies for a relevant post.

[WhiskeyJack]

NO one has mentioned it yet but i would be interested in hearing this. You do a field recording of the bats. For science purposes.

[vomitHatSteve]

a courgette isn't a fruit but it's a vegetable and they're not that fussy.

To be pedantic, it is a fruit. (Seed-bearing plant ovary). We just call it a vegetable because it's not sweet enough.

Whatever it is bats do

Eat mosquito mostly.

[JD01]

a courgette isn't a fruit but it's a vegetable and they're not that fussy.

To be pedantic, it is a fruit. (Seed-bearing plant ovary). We just call it a vegetable because it's not sweet enough.

Whatever it is bats do

Eat mosquito mostly.

This plays fuck with my OCD. I was ranting at bubba the other day cos the tinned tomatoes were in the tinned veg aisle!