How would you feel to be palisade by 10 million bats ? For wildlife cameraman Josh Aitchison , it was an “ extraordinary spectacle , ” and one that he had to spend three weeks survive in a tree to catch from a unique slant .
Straw - colored yield bats , Eidolon helvum , are a big species of Old World fruit bats , Pteropodidae . Their diet of fruit and flower means they serve an importantecosystem serviceby dust seeds and pollen during their flight , which range from daily trip of tens of kilometers , to their epic one-year migration .
That migration brings an reckon 10 million drinking straw - colored yield bats to Kasanka National Park in Frederick North - central Zambia , believe to be thelargest mammal migrationin the world . It ’s also one of the largest known collecting of fruit bats in the humans , accord to a2007 study .
It ’s unsurprising , then , that such a record - break issue makes for quite the aerial spectacle , and it ’s one that wildlife cameraman John Aitchison get to see from a unique perspective when he spend three weeks film from a tree in Kasanka National Park . The epic filming battle of Marathon features in the BBC seriesMammals , narrated by Sir David Attenborough ,
“ Some of them have come 1,000 kilometers [ 621 mi ] to be here just for a few weeks , ” say Aitchison in a video about his experience . “ When they leave , there ’s this over-the-top spectacle [ that ’s ] really on a different level to any other view of mammals you will ever get . ”
“ There are millions of at-bat in the air at the same metre , it ’s just amazing . One of the most extraordinary things about it , is [ that ] they ’re really noisy when they ’re in the roost here and then when they leave , they go totally mum and you ca n’t even hear their wings . The sky is darkening with bats but you ca n’t get word them . ”
Mammalswas quite the series forworld - first footageand platter - break animals , include thefirst time Panthera pardus have been film hunting roosting baboon at night , and a wizard section on theworld ’s smallest mammal – the Etruscan shrew .
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