Following another hard day of work, I sat on the upstairs of the main building just to relax and watch the wildlife in the garden. I heard the white-lined bats that spent their days on the outside wall of the upstairs cabin clicking and chirping away. There were seven of them. At this time of day they were very fidgety and vocal with each other. They were continuously moving their heads, squeaking, cleaning their wings and fur, scratching itches and shuffling around to find the comfiest position. It may also be a coincidence but I noticed that when one yawned, another followed. I wonder if it was perhaps a sign of empathy. It wouldn’t be all that surprising given that they displayed what i think to be very distinctive social behaviours.
I noticed that five of them huddled together and seemed to cohabit the space relatively well without squabbling too much. Only occasionally taking flight and hovering directly in front of each other. I gathered that this was a form of warning another. The other two sat away from the group, a few feet closer to where I was sitting. It seemed that there was a pecking order in the group. The slightly larger, more dominant one of the two kept nattering its teeth, essentially vibrating its jaw to create a clicking sound. I assumed that this also was a kind of warning or sign of aggression to the smaller one as it really seemed to be affected by it. After each ‘natter’, which would last about a second every two or three seconds, the smaller bat would appear to either 'flinch’, squeak desperately, stretch its wing closest to the larger bat or retreat further away. None of which seemed to help. Even if it retreated the more dominant bat would simply follow and continue to inflict the nattering. If the more dominant one nattered continuously for five or ten minutes, one of the five that huddled together would fly over to it and hover in front of it, resulting in a few minutes peace. To me, there was definitely a dominance hierarchy with the two on the edge seemed likely to be the more lower ranking bats. I think the larger of the two was trying to assert its dominance and establish itself in the hierarchy. Just from this little window into their behaviour, I’d gained a whole new appreciation for the social complexity of bats. Something that had never really crossed my mind before.
In the evening a storm tore its way over the peninsula. It turned the sky and all of the plants an ominous dark pastel pink. It reminded me of the storm that hit the UK in 2017 which brought sand from the Sahara and turned the sky orange.
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