When I left off last time I was sweltering in the 100 degree plus heat in the desert of southeastern Arizona near the Mexican boarder. I have come to Arizona to photograph hummingbirds for a new book I am working on. This is the perfect time of year to be photographing hummingbirds. All the hummers in the western states are migrating south and have funneled down to southeastern Arizona on their way to Central and South America and I have intercepted them here.
The days are spent photographing hummers but when the sun goes down and the day starts to cool off, it’s a different critter I am photographing—bats. Bats are the only mammal with wings and the only mammals capable of true flight.
World wide there are about 4,000 species of mammal with nearly 1,000 of these a kind of bat. That means that one quarter of all the mammals on this earth is a kind of bat. That should put into prospective how diverse and widespread bats are.
In the United States we have about 45 different species of bat but here in southeastern Arizona I’m interested in just two of these bats—the nectar feeding bats. These are the Mexican Long-tongued Bat and the Lesser Long-nosed Bat. These are some of the smallest of all living mammals and weigh less than 10 grams. They are highly specialized bats feeding mainly on the nectar of desert blooming plants.
Most bats feed mainly on insects and small reptiles and amphibians. In fact bats consume so many insects that a world without bats would be a world over run by flying bugs. The nectar feeding bats also eat insects but they feed heavily on the high energy nectar and pollen of night blooming plants. They can ingest up to 150 percent of their body weight in nectar each night.
Nectar feeding bats live in Mexico and Central American and migrate thousands of miles to follow the blooming of specific flowers such as Saguaro cactus and Agave. In spring the bats migrate north out of Mexico following the bloom of the Saguaro cactus. The Saguaro is the very large cactus that stands up to 30 feet tall with upward bent arms. It’s the signature plant of the southwestern desert. Each spring Saguaro’s produce clusters of large white flowers that bloom at night and attract the bats. This cactus depends upon the bats for pollination. In fact over 300 plants such as Mangoes, Bananas and Agave are pollinated only by bats.
By the end of summer the bats have reached the southern quarter of Arizona where the range of the Saguaro stops and they have stopped blooming. Now the bats turned around and start heading south, returning to Mexico. This time the bats are following the blooming of the Agave plants which bloom at the end of Aug and throughout September. Again the Agave plant depends upon these bats for pollination as do the bats depend upon the Agave for food. And if you didn’t know already, the Agave plant is what’s used to make distill Tequila.
My timing is perfect, because the bats showed up on their southward migration just three days before I arrived. About an hour past sunset, when the evening fades into complete darkness, the bats start flying. They are searching for the blooming Agave flowers. I have set up my camera and three flashes on a particularly large Agave flower. I am using a wonderful devise called the Phototrap that uses an infra-red beam of light to trigger my camera. Since its dark and I can’t see the bats I am relying on my Phototrap to “see” the bats and trigger my camera and flashes. About an hour goes by before suddenly my camera goes off and the flashes light up the night sky. For a split second I can see the bat visiting my flower in the glare of the flashes.
Even thought it’s dark it’s still very warm and the insects are a bit annoying. It is still so warm that the sweat of the day hasn’t dried on my brow. I sit and wait in the darkness until about 2 AM before giving up for the night and heading off to bed. I’m so darn tired that I will have to wait until the morning to look at my images. But it was well worth the time and effort.
If you want to see more images of the hummingbirds and bats, click here.