Owlet Nightjars, possum and Flying foxes

["Philip Veerman" <>]

I was under the impression that we only have 1 species of flying fox here, the Grey-headed, the one I'm familiar with from Qld. But according to the Australian Bats book by Sue Churchill (1998), that one is more coastal and high country and does not occur as far west as the ACT. The only one in the ACT (and all surrounding parts of NSW) is the Little Red Flying Fox. I'd rather call them fruit bats than flying fox (because they aren't).

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: boy nature [
Sent: Monday, 13 January 2014 1:40 PM
Cc: CanberraBirds
Subject: [canberrabirds] Owlet Nightjars, possum and Flying foxes

Walking home last night along limestone avenue in Ainslie I came across a flock of flying foxes, at the Ainslie football club playing field. There were at least 5 and probably many more, it was very dark so I couldnt identify which species.

Also 1 brush-tailed possum,

and 2 owlet nightjars, which were very cute. I got to within 2m of the bottom one and neither moved.

 

Benj Whitworth