A small section of the flying Fox colony in Taringa in Brisbane.
They roost in trees that run along a small creek next to a children's playground where we often take Maggie for a play.
Flying Foxes are extremely important to Australia's natural forests and are the single most important pollinator of many of our species of eucalypt and other native trees. They are nocturnal and at dusk, can be seen leaving their roosts and can travel up to 50kms to feed on pollen, flowers and fruit.
In recent years, Flying Foxes have received a very bad wrap and in fact the alternative name of Fruit Bat seems to be used much more often now - in my opinion since it less glamorous than Flying Fox and makes it easier to foster a negative impression of them.
Flying foxes only eat commercial fruit when there is no nectar or pollen available and they are a closer relative to monkeys and humans than they are to the micro-bats.
They look spectacular streaming across the sky at dusk. We are very sympathetic to the flying Fox, as you have pointed out in your text, they are so important as pollinators :)
Nice shot Terry.As far as not eating commercial fruit unless there is no nectar or pollen available Rubbish !!! They destroy a large percentage of our mangoes & bananas every year when there is plenty of their natural food available.
@peterlgrave Ha ha Peter. I was actually thinking of you when I put this up and wondered what your reaction would be given the Flying Fox goings on in Charters Towers. Now you cant blame them for liking mangoes can you? I did notice that you didn't fav them. LOL
@terryliv It amazes me Terry that most people that love them don,t have to live near them.The smell down in the park in the town is terrible and i feel sorry for the people who have to put up with it.We have a beautiful a beautiful park that most of the time you can,t use due to bats crapping on you or in one case giving birth on a womans daughter..
November 5th, 2014
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