Hi Everyone

Once again we were rained off last night   We had extremely heavy rainfall from 6.30 pm until about 9 pm, so we had to close the traps. The river levels are back up again, and we are anxiously monitoring the levels to be ready for another flood, if we get heavy rain again tonight we might be in trouble.

Everyone is getting really frustrated and bored,  and we are all desperate to work tonight!

On Monday, the team was joined by four students from a the Science University of Malaysia (USM) which is in the north of the country. Fatim, Diah, Jirah and Mimi (all women) are with the project for six weeks for practical training as part of their degree in Biodiversity and Conservation. This is a common practice in Malaysian universities — you go for 6-10 weeks in your third year (out of four years) to get experience doing research. They are settling in really well and seem to enjoying themselves, although I’m sure they’d like it even more if we were able to catch bats!

Mimi, Jirah and Diah getting ready to go to the cave on Wednesday

Fatim (right) helping Julie (left) take photos of the bat wing shapes. The bat is laid out on the blue mat and its wings taped into position for the photo. It only takes a couple of minutes and the bat is fine afterwards. From the photos Julie can measure the shape of the wing with great accuracy and can compare the shapes of different species.

Fingers crossed that we can work tonight
Best wishes
Dr Kingston