Tucked in

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a meeting at the Hastings Natural History Reservation in Carmel Valley.  While walking by one of the buildings, I heard some high-pitched sounds coming from behind the shutters.

The shutters were attached to the building, so there was only a very narrow gap behind them.  I had to flatten my face against the wall to peak behind the shutter.  But once I got into the right position, I had a pretty nice view of the animals that were making the sounds:

 

Bats!  

I was excited to see some up close.

I'm not sure which species of bat this is, but if you have any thoughts about the identification, I'd love to learn more.

Here's a slightly closer view (check out the size of the ears!):

 

Maybe you'll see some bats tonight during your Halloween adventures?

Woken up by the warmth?

Warm temperatures today seem to have awoken some slumbering creatures:

 

Eric noticed two small bats flying over our house tonight.  We had fun watching them between 7:45-8:00 p.m. and then they disappeared.  At that time it was ~67°F.  Sunset was at about 7:36 p.m. 

When I posted about bats in October 2013, Jules suggested that they might have been Mexican Free-tailed Bats (Tadarida brasiliensis).  The bats we saw tonight also appeared small with visible tails, but I don't have enough experience identifying bats to say which species this is.

Although it's challenging enough to photograph a bat in flight at dusk, I realized it could be helpful to include something else in the picture for scale.  There wasn't much around tonight, but here's an image with a redwood in the background:

Same Bat-time

 

It's a distinctive silhouette, isn't it?  I just wish I knew which species of bat it was.  

On warm nights, these small bats feed over our yard at dusk.  I didn't get great photos tonight, but since these are my first bat photographs in California, I decided to go ahead and post them.  Here are two more of the bats in the middle of high-speed aerial maneuvers:

 

 

There are 14 species of bats listed for Point Reyes in The Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula by Jules Evens.  If you have an idea about which species this might be, I'd love some help!