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| I finally got to participate with the Oklahoma Dept. of Wildlife bat inventory. Of course, day 1 of the 3 day event was raining... sigh... | But we did meet and get all of the equipment ready. We use what they call "Mist Nets" which are like the hair nets cafeteria workers used to wear only way bigger! | They measure 4 ft tall and 30 ft wide! |
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| It is a very fine nylon mesh and care must be taken when unrolling the net or giant snags appear which are close to impossible to get out! | One end to the other | |
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| It takes 6 nets to make a 25 ft tall giant net. | Equipment for a mist netting adventure including rattlesnake shin guards. | We go out into the field and find a good location for the two 25 ft high nets |
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| Mel likes this one... a break in the shrubs and trees from the lake to a clearing. | Mike chose one nearby from the meadow to a truck path though the trees. | |
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| Time to set up for hopefully tonight! | Mike and Mel...Mike is the manager at Alabaster Caverns State Park and Mel is with the Dept. of Wildlife Conservation. | Both are retiring on Oct. 31st of this year. Perfect day for bat people to call it quits! |
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| After Mike sets a stake into the ground, a hollow pipe that will be the mast is put over it to hold it steady. It will tie down with ropes to the trees to make it steady. | The net is connected to rings which are connected to a rope (like a flagpole) which pulls the rings (and the net) up to the top. | One pole done. |
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| Just a hollow lightweight pipe | The net | Hope we don't tangle it up! |
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| We had the two local biologists come out and help us out as they too were going to watch the netting procedure. | This pole looks ready | The net is going up |
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| Mike supervising <grin> | Tammi from the Hackberry Flat Center was helping us too! | Showing the net in detail. A bat will fly into it and get tangled and then we can ID it and measure it before releasing it again. |
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| You can see the overlapping nets that make up this high overall net | The lake to land net is done | A new net... all nice and pretty... they are never this way again. Some machine has to do it as we can't make it nice and neat and small. |
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| We are ready | Mike's bat measuring instruments | |
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| A scale in grams | A cailiper for bat length and wing length | Then we all sit in our chairs and await darkness |
