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Third
weekend of Feb... official average coldest weekend of the year.... time
for Bat Count in Oklahoma. This trip: Selman Cave Complex in NW Oklahoma. |
It
was COLD! The 32° temp was ok but the 25-35 mph North Wind made
the wind chill at 15°!! Brrr! The teams get their last minute gear
on and take off for their part of the cave! |
We
were assigned the OohAah entrance to Skylight, up to Betty's Chair
then out to Square Sink entrance. |
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OohAah
was named for the beautiful tunnels with lots of cave popcorn and wonderful
crystals in the tunnel. |
Natural
Crystals are everywhere in this section of the cave. Putting a light
up to one diffuses the light throughout the crystal... very pretty. |
But
we're here to count bats... which there were none throughout all
of OohAah... until the last room that leads into the Skylight hallway. |
The
cave itself was quite warm! 50° throughout our entire set of passages!
And a noticeable lack of water was apparent. |
The
mats were small all in all but were very spread out. A very small packing
rate of 150 was given for the typical 1x1 ft. mat. |
These guys were tucked in various cracks. You might see one like this but never see the one on the other side of the outcrop... looking everywhere is needed. |
We
finally found large mats near the White Mountain area. The temp stayed
at 50° and we found pips and myotis side by side though the myotis
were by far the biggest count. |
Here
is a scale for the way the bat mats look like. |
Mini mats were throughout the rest of cave but the big ones were only in the White Mountain area. LOTs of singular or pair counts on this trip. |
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Coming
out of the Square Sink Entrance Sinkhole... And back into the cold air.
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Our team today:
Our Cave Count: Report submitted: 2/23/03 by ddv03 |
