LAWRIE WILLIAMS: A Rainforest Retreat and a Little Bat

Yesterday I paid an all-too-rare visit to my home away from home, an old house I take care of up in the rainforest way up in the hills. From there I'm well placed to seek hidden creatures and I know I should do more of it, but life keeps getting in the way.

The place is a somewhat spartan house. It is unpainted in the old style and the only electrical wiring is a 12V system I installed based on a solar panel and some old car batteries. It is the simplicity of this place that appeals to me.
This is the room where I sit at a table and listen to the solar powered radio while I have a cup of tea and contemplate the rainforest.




BTW, that forest you can see out the window is the actual habitat of the white lemuroid ringtail possum, now suspected to be extinct. I plan to do some spotlighting this winter.

So yesterday I had my cuppa then I went outside and devoted some hours to keeping the jungle back, for this little house is completely surrounded by rainforest. And a carpet snake had been inside and there were numerous smashed jars on the floor so there was plenty to do. Then I stopped for lunch and another cup of tea.

As I was tidying my stuff away I became aware that something was not quite right.

I turned, and right there at eye level was a tiny bat! All the time I had been there I had not seen him!




I'd even eaten an apple and an orange and fastened the stickers to the wall right next to him. He had not moved; I had not noticed him! No wonder he did not move. He had died and become mummified. I am not sure why, since I had made sure bats can get in and out of the place. I knew bats lived there because when I first started using the place some years ago I had taken an old straw hat off the wall and a bat had flown out of it!

To me it is an illustration of the challenge of spotting creatures that have evolved so as not to be seen. Well, at least the ringtail possums are white; maybe I'll notice them.