It is spring here, and already there's 50 fires in the state of New South Wales. I'm hoping today's fire weather does not send the Willi Willi fire on a run. The region is in drought, everything is so dry.
After 1 week, there's a 150 km fire front to defend. Sadly, a life, houses and sheds have been lost, national park burnt through, maternity bat sites burnt over.
Close to the fire symbol on the map is one of the Kempsey Speleological Society long-term cave monitoring sites (and lots of bats).
Many #bats are struggling and now it turns out that stress dramatically impacts the fertility of male big brown bats, halving their testosterone and reducing their ability to produce sperm within an hour of becoming stressed
Initial results from a clinical trial show an experimental vaccine produces immune responses in healthy adults against Covid-19 variants and a range of other coronaviruses.
Last saturday while on a walk around a small lake here in Vancouver I observed this dark shape darting around. Then I realized it was a bat. It was skimming the surface of the lake eating all the bugs flying over its surface. It was late dusk and I only had my 300mm f/5.6 lens, but I wasn't gonna let that stop myself from trying. And in between hundreds of blurry photos, I got two less blurry ones. And you can see the bat!! And its reflection!!
Scientists fear a mutated, highly transmissible strain will emerge from #bats. Outbreaks are rare but #Nipah has been listed by the #WHO as one of several #diseases deserving of priority research for their potential to cause a global epidemic, alongside Ebola, Zika and #Covid19#NipahVirus