What an interesting suggestion. Would be very hard to do. Are you requesting photos or drawings? I have a book
Australian bats by Sue Churchill. It has many photos and diagrams but few of flying animals. Apart from the - obvious by their size fruit bats (“flying foxes”), I would think
identifying bats in flight would be really difficult. I have heard that some species of small bats do differ a bit in flight actions. But opportunities for observing this are limited.
In 1979 I had a memorable in field in hand encounter with a Yellow-bellied Sheathtail Bat. I reckon that would be one of the few of the carnivorous species
that would be easy to identify in the field.
Not Australia, but an opportunity to mention. In September 2009, I had a nice evening stroll along the Yangtze river at Wuhan in China. Many insectivorous bats
hunting the twilight skies. Not just that but it was clear that there were maybe 3 or 4 different species, by virtue of the range of size and flight styles. Of course no way of assigning names to them. And when I left Wuhan airport for the transfer at Hong
Kong, there was even a small bat inside the airport terminal, flying around our heads presumably feeding on mosquitoes or similar. I did not even notice any of the waiting passengers take any notice of it.
Philip
From: calyptorhynchus . [
Sent: Monday, 19 February, 2018 7:31 AM
To: Canberra Birds
Subject: [canberrabirds] bat resources
Does anyone know of source of information on Australian bats? What I am really looking for is a series of flight silhouettes, most books and websites just have roosting individuals illustrated.
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