Oddball bat

The Safari was out helping LW at the zoo with her Grab that Gap project this morning. She needed some help identifying the plants that had come up in a small piece of the garden that has been set aside for native wildlife. A grand total of 47 species were recorded including a several bumble bees and hoverflies feeding at the flowers and a Great Spotted Woodpecker flying over us. Our reward for helping out was a nice cuppa and a rather unusual bat. It had been found wet and bedraggled crawling  on a footpath before the zoo opened and was rescued otherwise it would likely been trodden on by the throngs of visitors. It was taken in to care and looked after all day and night but eventually died. But just look at it. how mad is that! A pied winged bat, is it a Daubenton's Bat with that white ventral fur or is that part of the leucism too?

It;s currently in the garage at Base Camp drying out, could do with it in a warm airing cupboard but it doesn't smell too good. We've put a gauze 'tent' around it to stop any flies laying their eggs on it and the resulting maggots eating it to nothing. Hopefully the tragus in the ears won't deform too much as it mummifies and we can get a good close up pic (with a peg on our nose!) to aid/confirm identification.

A gloomy luchtime shuffy round Patch 1 wit hMonty had us looking for any grounded migrant birds which may have been about, bit late in the day we know but you've gotta try! No birds were found but we did come across three lots of Parasol Mushrooms along the woodland trail we've not wandered down for a few weeks. Well worth the detour  today!

We'll have another look tomorrow if we can to see if the top one has fully opened, it looks like it's going to be a big dobber but wouldn't be surprised if some numbnut had splodged them thinking they were deadly poisonous.

On our second visit of the day we couldn't find anything out of the ordinary but Monty did...he went sniffing about in the undergrowth and came out with another dog's lost ball and must have put his beak through big spider's web somewhere along the line.

The Posty arrived yesterday wit ha parcel for us from our Extreme Photographer. Inside the plain brown card wrapping were a couple of field guides that'll get some serious use next season...Cheers Bud!

And a soirree with friends D & PH had this beauty opened in front of our very wide eyes - we do like a bit of cake!

Apart from the bright yellow puffa jacket that looks like us to a tee!!! The both Monty and the nature reserve look pretty authentic too! But how did it taste? - - as good as it looks - - yummo double yummo

Where to next? Tempted by the cake we might do a long early morning on the nature reserve in the morning.
In the meantime let us know who looks good enough to eat in your outback.