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Published: March 2nd 2012
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Monkey bats – is that the time?
(Cue Batman Theme) We wanted a picture of the massive bats, so we went back to the spot we saw them around the same time and waited. While we were waiting, I went up to a taxi to speak to the driver.
"G'Day Bruce", I said, "do you know a good place for bats round here?"
“There’s a massive colony of them”, he replied, “about half a kilometre from here. Hundreds of the filthy little buggers, and they stink”.
“Ooooo”, I said, "Quick Robin, into the Bat Taxi".
Moi, sorry, Robin jumped in too.
“Holy Bat Droppings, to the bat colony Bruce and don’t spare the roos.”, said Moi, sorry Robin.
"Don't call me by my real name in public", I hissed, before I realised she, sorry, he wasn't talking to me.
So Bruce did just that, and soon the Bat Taxi screeched to a halt by a small wood just out of town.
And he was right, they did stink.
"Holy Guano", said Moi, I mean, Robin, "There are hundreds of the filthy little buggers, and they stink".
Although they look
like bats, smell like bats, hang upside down like bats, and everyone calls them bats, it turns out they’re actually flying foxes and are more closely related to the Madagascar lemur than true bats. (Monkeys, I knew it. I knew they had to be somewhere). Also, they don’t use sonar, they use eyesight, which is why I guess they fly more like birds.
Anyway, we hung around for half an hour and then, on some unknown signal, they all set off for the mountains.
Hundreds of the filthy little . . .
(Yes, yes, alright). Hundreds of Monkey Bats - what an amazing sight!
"Holy Bat Doo-Doos", said Moi, sorry, Robin, "you don't see something like that every day!".
(Actually, if you live on the corner of Davidson St and Port St in Port Douglas, you do).
Star Report Finally, a clear sky, and wow, I hardly recognised anything !! Went down to the beach and looked at the stars then realised I couldn’t actually see the star maps on my iPhone so had to go back to get my reading glasses (reading glasses to look at the stars, I ask you)
and go back.
Amazing. Saw all sorts of wonderful new stuff. Scorpio was up, Corvus the crow. Salis and Stern were up but I must admit, the Argo Navis constellations are a bit indistinct so not I've not fully worked them out yet.
But what I was most interested in seeing was the Southern Cross, and there it was.
And I’ll tell you something – it’s tiny!!! No wonder they’ve been keeping it quiet. Nothing like the Northern Cross at all, it’s really small (say about twice the size of Lyra - I know I, know!!). And I’ll tell you something else too. There’s no middle star!! There’s only the outer four. So it’s not really a cross, I bet they only called
it that because we’ve got one in the Northern Hemisphere and they wanted one. A
more accurate name for it would be “The Tiny Southern Parallelogram”!!
I am told that the sky is so dark in the outback that the Aborigines don’t have names for the shapes the stars make, they have names for the shapes the dark spaces make!! Don’t know much more about this yet but will keep on looking.
Melbourne is another 20 degrees south 37°48′S 144°57′E and that will be about the lowest we go so hoping to get some good viewing in then. Haven’t seen the Magallenic Clouds yet.
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anonymous
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Southern Skies envious me never!! Wwot about Milky Way how does it look compared with N?