B IS FOR BAT : A-Z Challenge

Welcome to Day 2 of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. My theme is:

'Wildlife Encounters'

When I moved to Fiji there were so many new experiences, every day seemed to herald a new distraction. I never tired of the novelty of sharing my garden with tropical birds, and I definitely never became blasé about the fruit bats – or flying foxes.

Fiji’s only indigenous mammals regularly disturbed our sleep, squabbling and fighting. Their nocturnal screeching sounded like an onslaught of banshees.

One of the windows in front of my writing desk had a papaya (pawpaw) tree directly outside.

I was working at my desk one evening when a bat landed on the tree in a swish of leathery wings, intent on feasting on my ripening papayas. 

I yelled at him to leave my fruit alone; I had been anticipating their imminent harvest.

He simply stared at me as if to say, "You looking at me?" 

Over several days I philosophically watched him demolish most of the ripe fruit on the tree. I was fascinated the first time I saw him awkwardly manoeuvre himself to an upright position in the branches in order to pee and poop.

Fortunately papayas grow like weeds in Fiji and I was able to harvest the fruit crop from other trees in due course.

See you on Monday - I'll be heading north east. Can you guess where and what the next animal will be? 



If you want to blog-hop to the next A-Z Challenge blog, please click HERE