Alabaster Bat Count 2021 (abc21) - page 2

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Saturday January 30, 2021 - Time for the annual bat count at Alabaster Caverns State Park in NW Oklahoma. The count is done to record hibernating bats in the cave and goes with the data that has been ongoing for over 25 years. This year's personell was from the Park itself, Oklahoma Parks and Recreation, and volunteers from the ODWC Selman Bat Watch. We will find three different types of bats in the cave. The common cave myotis (myotis velifer), the tricolor bat (Perimyotis subflavus) and the Big Brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus). This years count was about 8,000 above last year. This years final was 25,599 total bats! Many thanks for those who helped in this years count! Click on any thumbnail photo below to see the picture.
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Everyone together again.	Two boys showing us how deep the guano is!
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	A bic pen for perspective	Take a break
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While the old ones take a break, the young ones go wild caving down gun barrel	about a 300 ft passage which is almost all crawl and belly crawl... kinda fun!	(I say that as I take the pictures from the trail above!)
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	We had two recorders (Mike and Jerry). Recorders take the numbers called out by the counters. Here is Jerry's notepad.
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		Near the end we started encountering multiple mats or clusters
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A movie was made in the cave and Mike has allowed the props to stay.	Right at the exit, we found GIANT mats!	I finally got in a picture of a bat count!!
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These guys were thick and piled into every crevice they could find.
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		a river of bats
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	The 2021 crew (minus a few that already walked to the cars)	The Caywood family. Thanks to all who helped out! Final count: 25,599!
Click on any thumbnail photo above to see the picture.

A (poor) 10 Sec. Video of the large bat mat this year

Go to the previous set of pictures page

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Last updated: 1/31/21