I'm a Flying Fox

I had the opportunity to zip line through an Australian rainforest: Lamington National Park. So far, I've gone scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef and zip lining through the rainforest. The Outback has some major competition…

The zip line was called the "Flying Fox". Flying foxes are bats, native to Australia. With my arms and legs flying everywhere, I was one uncoordinated Flying Fox. 

Flying Foxes are a familiar sight in Queensland's night skies. They often fly over in such large number that they are assumed to be abundant but are threatened by a lack of native food sup pies and roosting sites due to habitat destruction. Flying Foxes feed on nectar and pollen from eucalyptus sap and rainforest trees native grit, leaves, bark and cultivated fruit. Two species are found at the Canungra camp, the Grey-headed is Flying Fox and the Black Flying Fox. The Grey-headed is nationally listed as 'vulnerable' and its Queensland status us under review. 

Photo by Larissa Liska

Photo by Larissa Liska

One night, we conducted a "Flying Fox Count" experiment. When looking at a tree-full of Flying Foxes during the day, I estimated there were about 250 total. Once the sun went down and it was time for them to go out to eat, a wave of Flying Foxes zoomed overhead. In my mind, I was imagining the flying monkeys form the Wizard of Oz… while humming the music too. As ugly as they look in the sunlight, they didn't seem as intimidating flying through the air. They actually looked like birds from a distance. After an hour of waiting for them to all fly past us, we calculated there to be about 3,400 Flying Foxes that night. WOW. I was way, way off on my calculation. Good thing I'm not a scientist. I'll stick to pretending to be a Flying Fox, zip lining through the air hehe