12 July 2008 - The Lakes, Larkfield - evening...

So, evening falls slowly as the sun drops below the horizon. You've had a nice day with The Good Lady Wiff - but being the considerate type, you agree to an evening stroll around the country park.

And armed with a bat detector and your camera, you venture forth.

Trouble with night photography is that you can't focus on the topic because, er... you can't see the bloody thing!

The answer?
Step 1 - Set the camera to a preselected focal distance/magnification/flash/aperture and anything else you can think of.
Step 2 - Turn on your bat detector and hand it to your Good Lady Wiff - asking her politely (of course) to point it down the track.
Step 3 - You crouch down, so you have the maximum amount of late evening sky in your vision.
Step 4 - You listen to the bat detector.
Step 5 - When the bat detector starts to produce all sorts of ticks, tocks, slaps and tickles, you get ready to stand up and leap forward as soon as the bat comes in to vision.
Step 6 - Point camera
Step 7 - Push shutter
Step 8 - Pray

The result?
137 images - and not a single really sharp one amongst them. But the whole exercise, it has to said, was hilarious. The Good Lady Wiff hurt her stomach muscles laughing so much - whoops. Still not many husbands would do that for his missus. As I keep telling her, she's a very lucky girl!

This is my favourite image - was so pleased to see that I'd even captured the prey item on this one.

Probable Daubenton's Bat.

As for the rest? Given the different vocalisations, sizes, etc, I simply haven't got a clue. We certainly had Soprano's and Common Pip - but these were the minority.

Anyone fancy another fun evening attempting the impossible - drop me a line!

Transferring food - nice (if you like eating insects, that is).