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Day 1, 2 (morning of 3) – DIARY

Apologies for the delay in these updates, the internet satellite antenna is now working, and my ‘diary updates’ should be now become more regular. This will be a long one, as I’ve lots to share with you!

We are now in the Kulau Lompat Research Station, which is on the South-East edge of the Krau Wildlife Reserve. We started checking the traps last night, and caught 5 bats (from the 10 traps each night) after dusk, and we caught 7 more this morning after dawn. The traps change location during the day, the local people of this area are employed to do this, and we check them for bats each evening and morning (dusk and dawn).

You can check the different bats we caught last night on the following website, which Dr. Tigga updates each morning:

Malaysian Bat Education Project

After my exciting 2 days of exploring Kuala Lumpur, and eating lots of delicious food, we took the “Bat Bus” 2 ½ hours North-East to Kuala Lompat. The research station is about 2km down the road from the nearest village, which I walked to yesterday, to see lots of smiling children doing their chores and playing around their houses. The houses in the village are built on stilts due to the flooding which occurs in this area. “Kualu” means in English, “where two rivers meet” and our research station is at the exact place they meet (hope it doesn’t rain much, I forgot my snorkel!) We saw plenty of banana trees right next to the road, but they’re still a bit green.

Looking East, over the other cabins in the Research Site	Looking North, straight at the Krua Wildlife Reserve, and the small gate we use to get in

It is amazing to see some of the village houses, as they appear quite ‘simple’ compared to ours in Australia, but they still have the best satellite dishes sticking out of their roofs! I’ll see if I can get you a picture of one….

In regards to local bugs and critters, I received the first honours with getting a big leech on my belly. Others have got them since then, and mine wasn’t the biggest either. I have now tightened my defences and they can’t get past my socks. Because it’s so hot here during the middle of the day, no organisms really do anything between 10am till the sun goes down (at 7:30), unless you’re in the rainforest. Plenty of leeches in there, and mosquitoes, no matter what time of day it is! Plenty of lovely butterflies flapping about, one chilled-out on my arm for a while yesterday, massive wasps and bees, and a few cheeky monkeys chasing each other in the trees (Mandy and Mark) plus Lionel the lizard.

Now for the bats. There are currently two short-term studies being undertaken in the Krau Wildlife Reserve, and one long-term study. Dr. Tigga Kingston supervises and works with the two short-term studies, while she continues her longer individual study.

There are 5 research sites in or around the Krau Reserve, this is just one of them. Each site takes about a month to check/sample for bats, so each spot on the site has a ‘bat trap’ set on it for at least one night. Do the maths: how long does it take to catch bats over the whole reserve?

Ain is studying microbats (the smaller ones) which fly and eat bugs close to the ground of the rainforest, in the rainforest understory. If they’re male we record their details and let them loose in the morning. If they’re female, we do the same as for male, but Ain keeps them overnight to collect their “guano” (bat droppings) to see what they’re eating. We then release the females in the exact spot we caught them in the forest, because they’re just starting to have bat-babies or ‘pups’ and we want the mothers to find their pups again. Ain uses a ‘harp trap’ to catch the bats, and I’ll get you a photo of one soon!

The microbats are quite small, with the biggest being able to fit on my hand easily (I could fit about 4 of the biggest on my hand, that’s how small they are!) I got to release one this morning in the forest, he, was roosting off my fingers before he took off flying back to his house for the day. I was awesome!

Justine is studying the larger bats here, including fruit bats. She only arrived last night, so I don’t really know what she’s doing yet, but I think she uses a different type of trap called ‘mist nets’. I’ll let you know more when I do!

That’s about all for now. Tomorrow I’ll tell you what we actually do at different times of the day. Remember to check for more photos and highlights tomorrow!

Mr. Logan

Kualu Lompat Research Station

Malaysia

Day 3 (Afternoon/Night), Day 4 Morning – DIARY

Selamat pagi everybody!

Last night, if you have looked on the Malaysian Bat website you’ll notice that we caught about 6 bats last night, but unfortunately only 1 this morning. I was quite lucky to get to hold one last night, my first time ever holding a bat. We have been ‘shown the ropes’ on how things operate here for the first few days and now Dr. Tigga is letting us do most of the work ourselves, with her supervision and support right next to us (in case we need some help), but we are getting much better.

This is a small cervinus species, one of the smallest we've caught so far	This is a little fella we processed in the forest

The timezone in Malaysia is 2 hours behind you in Warrnambool, so when you’re sitting in the Community Circle each morning, I’m still in bed asleep (although I should probably be eating my breakfast!). The time adjustment is not too bad, I find my stomach is growling at 10am here, because that’s when I normally eat lunch in Australia.

Now you know that Earthwatch has sent over 3 other teachers from Victoria to be here: Kate (Melbourne), Ryan (Geelong) and Chris (Warrnambool), but Earthwatch has sent over someone from the Australia Earthwatch Office as well, Caroline, just to see what we’re up too over here.

You have probably realized that the reason I’m over here is because there’s lots of bats here. Because of the humidity around the equator, there are a lot of bats in South-East Asia, but Malaysia definitely has the most. That doesn’t mean other countries around here don’t have any bats, the opposite in fact, which is why Dr. Kingston (Tigga) created the SEABCRU group a few years ago.

SEABCRU stands for ‘South East Asia Bat Conservation and Research Unit’, and gives people from other countries around here (with bats in there own countries), to come over and learn from Dr. Tigga, because she knows A LOT about bats in South-East Asia. At the moment, there are 3 other people here from other countries, in what we call the ‘SEABy crew’: Jovic is from the Philippines, Saveng is from Cambodia and Zie is from Indonesia. What they learn here from Dr. Tigga will be important for learning about bats in their own countries. We are here for only 2 weeks and the Seaby Crew are here for a month.

This is basically what we do, for most days (remember, this is in Malaysian time):

7am: Get up, eat breakfast.

7:45am: Go into the rainforest and check the bat traps, release bats caught last dusk.

9:30-10am: Get back from the rainforest

10:45: start writing up our ‘Daily Highlights’

12pm: Lunch

2:30pm: Either help Ain sort out her insects (see what the bats are eating), or setup/repair bat traps

5pm: Dr. Tigga gives us a lecture about some aspect of bats

6pm: Dinner

7:45pm: Go out and check the bat traps

9:30-10pm: Get back from the rainforest and process the bats we bring back to camp.

10:45pm: Bed time

Sorting out Ain's insects from the insect traps, to find out what percentage of bugs the bats are eating	First we weigh the insects/bat food before we sort it

Now we have been sorted out into pairs, and each pair has a common ‘bat name’ to help us remember them. This will help Dr. Tigga organize us and delegate specific tasks, which we will rotate around, so we get a good go at doing everything. I’ll be a ‘Bat Expert’ when I get back!

I have been put with Jovic, who is a very funny guy, always making jokes and silly comments (so we actually go very well together, even though he’s twice my age). We are the ‘intermedia’ group. Chris/Zie are ‘cervinus’, Ryan/Caroline are ‘ridleyi’ and Kate/Saveng are ‘trifoliatus’.

If you’re having trouble pronouncing the names, let me know on the Forum, and I’ll THRASS them out for you!

An update on Julie. She is studying the thickness of bat-wing membranes, so the bats we catch and bring back, she takes a photo of their wings. She has also brought with here some ‘mist nets’ which are used to catch bats in the rainforest canopy. We’re all going to setup the mist nets tonight, and then Jovic and I will keep an eye on them. They are different to Harp Traps, which you leave and check at dawn and dusk, because if a bat lands in a Mist Net you run over and catch the bat immediately in a big butterfly-like net! Should be fun!

This is a harp trap. They are set just above the ground and normally there is a bag at the bottom, to catch/hold the bats when they hit the trap	Julie taking a photo of membrane thickness. It doesn't hurt the bats!

I heard Australia is pretty cold at the moment, it’s the opposite here. Read tomorrow for more news!

Mr. Logan

Day 4 (Afternoon/Night), Day 5 Morning – DIARY

Hello again everybody,

Gotham City is going well over here, with plenty of bats caught last night, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

I first have a few exciting developments to share with you:

1. The ‘bird’ we thought we were listening too each morning is in fact a ‘house gecko’ and considered a pest. Our cabin is infested with them, but we like ‘em, ‘cos they eat the bugs at night.

2. The ‘Lompat Cat Twins’ are starting to annoy the whole crew, and one was sleeping of Jovic’s bed all day yesterday and made it smell like ‘cat’. He was not a happy jar of vegemite after that, and neither was the cat.

3. I am mildly allergic to Bushmans insect repellant, and mild allergic reactions coincide with additional skin heat, and I felt like a supernova last night. You don’t want to be any hotter then necessary over here!

4. Julie’s Mist Net was fantastic! It worked so well we caught about 15 bats in 1 ½ hours! That data will not be on the Malaysian Bat website, as Julies research is different to Ain’s and Dr. Tigga’s.

5. Cooked insects absolutely stink!

6. When the locals are sweating as much as you, you know it’s hot!

Usually afternoon after lunch, everyone disappears because it’s so hot in the middle of the day, but at 2:30pm our siesta finishes and activities resume. Teams Cervinus and Intermedia (I’m in Intermedia) spent 1 ½ hours sorting bat food (insects) into their taxonomic orders, and then cooking them. We weigh them, cook them for 5mins, then weigh them again (eliminates water from the body giving a more accurate biomass measurement). The others (Trifoliatus and Ridleyi) started making a bat cage right next to our cabin, so Julie can video specific bats we catch and measure their maneuverability and agility. Interesting!

During construction, we needed a few other pieces of equipment and the van was heading into Kuala Krau, and I jumped at the chance to break up the day with at visit to the town. It was a pretty cool little place, and we stocked up on ice cold drinks, Cheezles, Twisties and Pringles. Have you ever tried BBQ Curry Twisties? They’re pretty good!

At 5pm we all had a lecture off Tigga about classifying different species of bat, which I found interesting. Then at 6pm, we all went to the bridge which we cross to get into the Research Site (about 100m down the road from the cabin), and helped to setup Julie’s Mist Net. The bridge is about 40m long, about 20m from the ‘V’ of both rivers joining together. We then put up two big poles about 9m high, like big goal posts, except about 15m apart. (**Will, tell me what the area is of that net!**)

The poles are like flag poles, and we just attach the net and draw it up to the top! We caught heaps of bats with it too! Two different species of Mollosidae: Mops mops (small) and Cheiromeles torquatus (which weighed in at a whopping 250 grams!) and a species of fruit-bat: Cynopterus brachyotis, which we have decided is the ‘Golden Retriever of the Bat World’. Very cute.

Mollosidae are called ‘naked bats’ because they have very little fur, which makes it more aerodynamic and fast when flying. This means they need lots of open space to fly (like over a river into our Mist Net), and eats insects. Unfortunately, when we caught one, it started screeching a distress-call and other bats of the same species came to help! We would then have about 3-5 bats all wriggling in the mist net and it would be all hands on deck! This happened twice for the night, so I got lots of practice untangling and handling bats last night. These bats also have a ‘free moving’ tail (which makes them look like a flying rat) and stank like ammonia.

Try and untangle this! Good Luck!	Finally got the little guy out, small Mops mops

The Cynopterus have golden fur, with a dog-like face, eating mostly fruit. A good sized bat, weighing about 30 grams, still needs lots of open space to fly fast. We had to let him go first thing in the morning, as this species get stressed quite easily, and we didn’t want to do that to poor, cute, Fred. We liked Fred. Interestingly, he smelled like fruit.

We brought all the bats for processing at the cabin then went to bed.

This morning we all checked the harp traps in the forest and only caught one bat. Luckily for Ain, it was female, because her study is on female reproduction.

So, I hope you now understand the difference in the bats we’re catching. Small harp traps in the forest to catch the smaller, insect eating bats. Massive mist nets in the wide, open spaces above the river catch the larger fruit & insect eating bats, which are too large to navigate between the trees of the rainforest. Ain studies little female forest bats, Julie studies larger river bats and Dr. Tigga studies them all. (Some of the Mollosidae we caught over the river were as small as the bats in the forest, but because they fly really fast they can just fly and ping straight through the harp traps!)

A 1/3 of the way through our time in Malaysia. Keep posting plenty of questions guys, yesterday was great! I’ve had the most questions so far out of any other school here and Dr. Tigga has been impressed with your questions too! PLEASE REMEMBER YOUR SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!

Goodbye from me, and goodbye from him.

Mr. Logan

Day 5 (Afternoon/Night), Day 6 Morning – DIARY

Selamat pagi,

On the Day 5 afternoon we had a massive tropical storm, which we all enjoyed because it dropped the temperature by about 12 degrees Celsius and brought a lovely cool breeze onto the research site.

When you’re studying bats, rain is bad, especially if the bats you’re trying to catch have excellent echolocation (like the ones we’re catching in the forest). If it’s raining, all the little raindrops fall onto the harp-trap strings and the bats can echolocate where the raindrops are landing (it’s kind of like in the movie Daredevil, if you’ve seen it). So they ALL avoid the traps.

Luckily, it didn’t rain long, or at dusk when the evening bats come out, so we caught about 5 bats. Mostly Kerivoula papillosa, which I had to ‘process’ and find all the necessary information: forearm length, gender, age, weight, and put a little band on his wing incase we catch him again (then we can see how much he’s grown, if he was caught in another part of the forest etc). I was told that I was getting better at handling the bats, and more confident with them, which is good. Poor Jovic keeps getting bitten by them!

The bridge team with Julie only caught 6, which wasn’t as much as when we were on the bridge on Tuesday night. We’re on bridge duty again tonight, I really love bat fishing!

This morning we had a lovely walk in the rainforest, along a different grid we haven’t been on yet, and there was a massive strangler fig. It was amazing to see, as I’d never seen one before. We caught only 3 bats this morning, all on the same trap, so 11 traps caught nothing in the morning. All the bats caught were Kerivoula pellucida, which are the most agile insectivorous bats here at Krau. One was male and the other two were female….both with young pups! Talk about great mums, both pups weighed twice as much as the mum! C’mon guys, stop lazing about and get going!

As they were a family unit, we released them all at the same time, so they could fly off together. Very cool to see the three of them zig-zagging and dodging all the trees and vines!

A species of Strangler Figg	We are the br.....Pellucida Family!

I’ll be sorting out bugs with Jovic after lunch. Gets very hot as you can’t have the fans on (they blow the bugs off the table and we have to sort them again), and then we cook them. Ahhh, there’s nothing like the smell of cooked roaches on a hot afternoon! I plan on doing this in the class when I get back, just so I can share the experience with you! Haha.

I've Been leech-free since day one now, touch wood, as they can’t get past my socks. Flicked off an absolute beauty on Jovic’s back last night, it was about 10cm long and he was very appreciative afterwards!

Feels like I’m Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, dodging all these wasps! Ryan and I have developed a ‘wasp free zone’ in the boys bedroom, which seems to working, touch wood.

Julie’s ‘flight cage’ is coming along. I won’t put a picture up until its finished, but it’s going to be massive. It was my groups turn to work on it yesterday afternoon (5th) and it’s dimensions are 3m width, 9m length and 3m high. (**There’s a Rm1 Challenge for you: What is the volume of Julie’s flight cage? Hint: 3x9=?? x3 =??m')

Haven’t seen any ‘wombats’ or ‘numbats’ yet but I’ll keep looking…

That’s enough for now, keep posting questions in the Forum!

Mr. Logan

Krau Wildlife Reserve (Gotham City)

Malaysia

Day 6 (Afternoon/Night), Day 7,

Selamat pagi,

Apa kabar? Bagus? Tidak bagus?

You’ll need a cuppa for this one, as it’s been an action-packed 5 days.

Let me see… Yesterday was an absolute stinker, plus there was no breeze at all. Normally there is a slight to moderate breeze to cool us down, but not on this occasion. The cabin became a sweat box, but it was no better outside.

We did finally get Julie’s flight cage up, which was exciting, especially for Julie. The local carpenter hammered in the roof braces and attached the doors, but it’s not finished yet. It still needs a proper roof or the bats will escape, duh!

We were a little bit worried that it would fall over, but hopefully for Julie, it will not. You should see how high he got on this rickety old ladder, OH&S would confiscate it for sure (look at the bottom rung).

The flight-cage is up! With no roof though yet.	I don't think my OH&S friend would like that...

Last night we were on mist net duty with Julie, but after two nights setting it up on the bridge, she decided to try somewhere else. Like the river itself. Using a smaller mist net this time, as the river point she chose was not too wide, we waded across and setup the poles. Someone then waded across with the net and attached it. We now had a mist net starting 5cm above the water, 3m across and 1.5m high. Julie was hoping to catch a species of bat which eats insects just above the water’s surface, but we only caught another Mops mops. Sorry Julie. It was still nice to have a splash in the river and eat a few Cadbury items.

The funniest thing was all the locals coming down to their favorite swimming spot and seeing us setting up a great, big mist net. Then the camera phones were coming out I expect to see myself on someone’s Facebook page around here very soon! Obviously not as remote as we though, but makes sense when small, wooden shacks have a satellite dish on them.

Tomorrow is out day off! Yay! After checking the harp traps in the morning we will visit a nearby elephant sanctuary, and hopefully get to ride one! Then it’s off the Kuala Krau to have a decent look around this time, a bit of shopping, some lunch, more looking around, dinner, before going to the local ‘night markets’ which happen every Friday.

Should pick up a bargain or two in there I reckon.