{"id":3837,"date":"2012-01-07T08:57:14","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T08:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/?page_id=3837"},"modified":"2012-03-21T12:10:27","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T12:10:27","slug":"nicaragua-2012","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/?page_id=3837","title":{"rendered":"NIcaragua 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This was a holiday with Batwatch<\/a> led by Fiona Reid author of Mammals\u00a0 of Central\u00a0 America and Southern Mexico and experienced bat researcher.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Fiona Reid sketching bats. Photo Jude Hirstwood<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

We flew out to Managua and had a chance to visit Mayasa National Park. The volcano there last erupted in 1772 but the air was still heavy with sulphurous air.<\/p>\n

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Corroded sign at Masaya National Park. Photo Jude Hirstwood<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

The view into the crater was amazing and more amazing was the fact that there was a colony of vampires living in a lava tube within the crater.<\/p>\n

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Photo Jude Hirstwood Masaya volcano<\/p><\/div>\n

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From there we drove up the road to a set of caves in a lava pipe. This area is being monitored for bat activity and our Nicaraguan guide Arnulfo Medina Fitoria was due to be carrying out a regular\u00a0 harp trapping exercise that evening and we were allowed to help out.<\/p>\n

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Photo Bob Cornes, Harp trapping at the Masaya volcano<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Those of us used to catching bats in the UK count a\u00a0 catch going into double figures as remarkable \u2013 here 501 were\u00a0 caught over a period of two hours. The team of bat workers had to move very to idenitify and release the bats. And what bats- all from the same family the Mormoopidae<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo Jude Hirstwood Pteronotus parneli. Common moustached bat<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photo Jude Hirstwood Pteronoyus personatus Lesser moustached bat<\/p><\/div>\n

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This bat is called the naked backed bat but in fact it has fir underneath the wings\u00a0 which join over the back<\/dd>\n
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Photo Jude Hirstwood Pteronotus gymnotus<\/p><\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

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Pteronotus gymnonotus<\/em> is similar\u00a0 to P dayvii in that it has also has a naked back but \u00a0is larger has a much mor\u00e9 velvety sheen to its tail and legs<\/p>\n

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Photo Jude Hirstwood<\/p><\/div>\n

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Mormoops megalophylla<\/em>\u00a0 Ghost faced bat. We had met these in Trinidad but the Nicaraguan ones were not as brightly orange.<\/p>\n

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Mormoops megalophylla Photo Jude Hirstwood<\/p><\/div>\n

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These really are amazing looking bats and it was a fantastic start to the holiday.<\/p>\n

We headed back and after a meal in a local restaurant\u00a0 complete with karaoke and fantastic food and headed off to sleep before a very early morning start.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>We piled into a minibus \u00a0and spent five hours driving down to San Carlo. Here all our kit was loaded on a boat and we headed off up the river\u00a0 San Juan. We \u00a0had to stop several times along the way to hand over a list of our passports<\/p>\n

Then we arrived at our home for the rest of the holiday at Refugio Bartholi. I\u2019ve never stayed on one place for so long on a trip and it was great. You really got a chance to get a sense of place and there was so much to see there was no need to travel long distances. During the day we roamed the trails.Most nights we set up nets quite close to the Refugio, while the hardier souls headed deeper into the forest. We went in the rainy season and it was very wet in times. The rain was fantastic but left the clay soils treacherous.<\/p>\n

be continued…….<\/p>\n

I’ve put a gallery of the Phyllostomida<\/a>e that we saw in the following days<\/p>\n

You will hopefully get a taste of the experience of watching bats in this article I wrote for the newsletter, describing one night’s mist netting..2012-1NIcaraguan night<\/a><\/p>\n

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          This was a holiday with Batwatch led by Fiona Reid author of Mammals\u00a0 of Central\u00a0 America and Southern Mexico and experienced bat researcher.     Fiona Reid sketching bats. Photo Jude Hirstwood We flew out … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3837","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3837"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5505,"href":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3837\/revisions\/5505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}