Cranbrook Bat Festival

Grandma's last Saturday here we were able to attend the Cranbrook Bat Festival. This was a fun, special event for us to attend. I am sorry to say that without having the great excuse of having Grandma with us we probably not have made it there. We decided that Myka needed a nap so we didn't get up there till the evening. We got to go to a neat presentation on bats. At the end she brought out a live fruit bat, it was huge and really cool to see up close.

 

After the presentation we checked out the cool museum exhibit in the basement. The girls loved it. It was a very well done exhibit. This is Myka trying on her bat ears.

 

Myka and Kyla practicing hanging in a bat cave. We learned a lot of great stuff about bats.

 

More hanging in the bat cave. At the back of the exhibit they had wall cages full of fruit bats. It was fun to watch them fly around, eat, and land. Once the museum closed we headed down to the field where they were having a BBQ and fun music from Musical Mark. The veggie and turkey burgers were lacking much in flavor but other than that we had a great time. Then it got dark and the real fun started. They rose a 30 feet net and turned on a radio transmitter that actually picked up and amplified the chirps of the bats. It was so fun to watch the bats fly overhead and be able to hear them use their echolocation. They ended up catching quite a few Big Brown Bats and we got to have an up close view of each of them. All in all it was a great night and the mosquitos weren't even that bad; we even got a glimpse of the fireworks on the way home.