August 6, 2011
Pallid Bat in Hidalgo County, New Mexico

I've been getting lots of image processing done because conditions haven't been very good for photography. So, here's an image from my bat photo tour in August 2010 — a captive pallid bat.

The bat had been caught earlier that evening in a mist net by some bat biologists. Then we released it in a large area of a flight tunnel and it flew along the tunnel and exited through an approximately 20x30 inch (51x76cm) opening. The opening had eight beams across it to trigger four flashes, roughly pointed at the four corners, via a Phototrap. Shortly before the bat was released, we opened our shutters with the camera set to bulb (the shutter stays open as long as the shutter release is held open through a cable release), and then when the bat flew through the trigger beams, the flashes went off to make a very short effective exposure, and then we closed our shutters. The exit of the flight tunnel was enclosed in a mesh tent so the bat could be recaptured and reflown.