Central Park Bat Walk

Continuing our avian adventures, we went on a nocturnal sojourn, hosted by the American Museum of Natural History, through Central Park, looking for bats. About twenty of us, from kid to senior citizen, roamed toward the west part of the Lake (where we disturbed a bunch of teenagers in the midst of their own nightly exploration) and over to Bow Bridge.

The researchers leading the walk had a few electronic apparatuses that could pick up bat frequencies, but in the (frequent) moments of silence, the researchers elucidated some facts: 9 species of bats live in New York State. It's not known just how many live in Central Park, but somewhere in the neighborhood of "a lot." Bats are mammals, just like you and me. And, last but certainly not least in the fun fact department, bats aren't blind.

While I heard some clicking on the bat radio, I only saw one, which looked nothing like those on the poster above, from an 1880 lithograph print included in "Johnson's Household Book of Nature," but something like a disoriented brown bird as it swooped, first one way, then another, between a cluster of trees.