Looks like my list this time o' the year!

Speaking of visitors in the night - I miss the Bats. They had been all over the place - one near-sighted one slapped me on my left-cheek everynight as he zipped by sniping mosquitoes. "SLAP!" & "See an optometrist!" would be heard in the darkness... I even miss his leathery w/bones wing smacking me! Never hurt - just surprised me everytime, though I should have been used to it!

Across Lake Champlain, which is at it's widest-point right here in Burlington @12 miles across to Port Kent in New York, are the foothill to the Adirondack Mountains. Rising to about 4,000-foot, the Adirondacks' are made of limestone - Ca(OH)2 - which is quite soft and even slightly water-soluble. And this accounts for their being riddled with caves. I studied speleology, the science of underground caves and the like, when I was a teenager and frequently went caving. This involved crwling 100's of yards deep underground - often in a pernicious, thick & sticky mud - with Bats just inches above my head. We wore miner's helmets with actual carbide-lamps attached front & center onthem - with an adjustable tongue-of-fire to illuminate our way. Glancing yp was discouraged by the proximity of the hibernating Bats often only an inch over our heads & helmets. So a few got their backsides singed - "EEP!!" was heard, followed by "Sorry!!" - all in the name of 'Science!' Uh huh. Maybe this explains the Bat slapping me everynight - revenge! But I digress.....

Mother Natures' Mosquito-Snipers suffered an Epizootic - a mass die-off or illness - of what came to be called the "White-Nose Syndrome." A respiratory-disease that wiped-out 9 out of 10 of our Little Brown Bats species. Now Bats are quite, notably, absent. The 'WNS' of the Bats was being spread by untrained people going caving - here and elsewhere - who took no precautions and never cleaned their gear off between their what amounted to 'Partying' underground - judging my the assorted empty Jack Daniel's bottles and the like we ended-up hauling out. And these clowns' would go so far as to take Bats home to make into pets (it won't work - don't bother trying it!). The one's they took were usually the easy-to-catch ones, like sick ones already laying on the ground. All of this sort of behavior no-doubt contributed to the spread of what had been a rare sickness that was self-containing in nature.

I never had to buy mosquito-sprays with 'DEET' and other petrochemicals before the last few years. They don't even work to well for me. And the Mosquito population has bloomed like a California-wildfire - literal clouds of the buggers! The few Bats' have likely gotten fat & lazy. And heretofore extremely rare diseases are becoming common-place: West Nile Virus, Hanta-like diseases, the list grows.

Mother Earth has ways to right itself when damaged or injured. It's more like us than our 'culture' allows for believing. And this may be the end for some people. Poetic-Justice in my view.

evaD




Nyah! Nyah!

 

Bats,the only flying mammals, are fascinating animals. I sort of discovered them due to being out and about for my stargazing. You can get a electronic device which detects bats sonar. That's a good little list of messier and NGC objects.m103 is very poor, it reminds me of a tiny m39.