On Monday (Nov 8) afternoon, I was out at Bernheim Forest assisting with some radio tracking of Silver-haired bats in the immediate vicinity of the "Golden Eagle" area on Harrison Fork Road. Didn't have a chance to scan much, but at one point there were three Goldens (1 adult and 2 sub-adults) in the beautiful blue sky! I had been out there the previous week (Nov 3) and seen nothing, although there was complete cloud cover that day and they could have been sitting instead of soaring. The bat work has been interesting . . . radio transmitters have been temporarily affixed to the backs of five species of bats (red, evening, big brown, northern and silver-haired) in the Wilson Creek valley and associated uplands since early October. Follow-up tracking has shown that trees in the area are being used by all five, mostly trees on upper slopes that do not get so cold at night and that have a lot of southern exposre to the sun. The Red bat soon disappeared (as expected) as they typically roost in the foliage. The other four have remained roosting either under sloughing slabs of bark or in cavities. It is usually impossible to tell exactly where a bat is roosting, but often one can tell which tree it is in. Signals have now died from the transmitters placed on bats in early October, but the silver-haireds are migrants and possibly overwinter in tree cavities in the area. They probably only arrived in early October and they were the only species caught in netting over the creek Nov 7th. The radio signals last up to 4 weeks, so it will be interesting to see if they remain into December. So the next time you're down in this area, look around and picture bats hiding everywhere around you! bpb, Louisville ================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBERS============== The BIRDKY Mailing List requires you to sign your messages with first & last name, city, & state abbreviation. -------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, send e-mail to: birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx -------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send e-mail to: birdky-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject line. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Kentucky Ornithological Society web site at http://www.biology.eku.edu/kos.htm * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BIRDKY List Manager: Gary Ritchison, Richmond, KY E-mail: gary.ritchison@xxxxxxx