Bat Safari

I went on a Bat Safari the other day. That sounds cool doesn’t it? In theory it is, but in reality it wasn’t.

It started off bad and progressed into pathetic. I got to the State Park that it was being held at an hour and a half before the actual start time (I want to say they changed the start time, but knowing my memory I was probably remembered it wrong). I asked the park rangers where everyone was meeting for the bat safari, and was told at the Nature Center.

At 6:10 another person showed up (it was suppose to start at 6:00) looking for the bat safari. We couldn’t even ask the ranger in the Nature center, because it closed at 5:00. At 6:30 I found another park ranger, which informed me that the meeting was at the other park entrance 8 miles away. So I informed the other bat safari patron a, and away I went.

At the other park entrance there was no one to be found. So I headed off on the dirt trail in search of them. Unfortunately I headed in the opposite direction that they were. Luckily, I met a park ranger about a half a mile down the trail and he drove me back to the bat safari.

At the safari, the instructor taught us about bats (it took about 15 minutes; I have no idea what he was talking about to everyone else the 45 minutes that I wasn’t there). At dusk we headed out to track bats (he had an ultra-sonic detector). From dusk to about 8:30 we didn’t hear anything and most of the people headed home (it had started raining). At around 8:45 the rest of us headed back.

At the parking lot, the instructor gave the area one last sweep with the ultra-sonic detector, and he heard one (ONE). Somewhere in that direction over the lake, but by then you couldn’t see five feet in front of you (by now it is well past dusk, and it is dark out).

The whole experience was disappointing. I was expecting it to be like a scene out of Batman, but what I got reminded me of the static from an AM transistor radio (with a few clicking noises added in).