Flying Fruit Bats Picture Gallery

I wanted to take Ha to the Royal Independence Gardens – my favourite place in Siem Reap. I really like it there so I thought she’d enjoy it too. And since it was a beautiful day I was not gonna use to go to Angkor Wat, I thought of at least taking my camera with a telephoto lens to the gardens and try to snap some pictures of the Fruit Bats Flying so the day doesn’t go to waste entirely.

I fully realized that taking pictures of the Fruit Bats flying during the day was not gonna be easy, but I still wanted to give it a try. Bats are nocturnal animals so coming to them during daytime would mean catching them in the middle of sleep but with a little bit of patience, I may be able to see some of them flying. From what I have noticed, Fruit Bats are pretty vicious with one another and fight a lot when they are supposed to sleep. As a result, one is bound to take flight and move from one branch of the tree to another. That was gonna be my opportunity which I really didn’t want to pass on so I can complement the pictures of Fruit Bats sleeping with pictures of them flying.

Obviously, because of how high in the trees they dwell, it was gonna be difficult to get a decent close up photo even with a telephoto lens mounted on the camera. Armed with a great deal of patience, I’ve explained to Ha that the gardens are truly beautiful and the shriek of Fruit Bats magical so we were gonna stick around and enjoy the heat while I would keep my camera on standby to snap a photo should any of the sleeping flying foxes get awaken and take flight. The pictures in the gallery below capture these beautiful, huge bats flying against the blue Cambodian sky:

Flying Fox Bats Picture Gallery

When I first came to the Royal independence Gardens during the day to take pictures of Flying Foxes, I had wide angle lens with me. That proved contra productive as flying foxes dwell high up in tall trees making it impossible to get a decent close up done. So I ended up only taking pictures of trees where these Fruit Bats dwell (their natural habitat in Siem Reap, Cambodia) and went back to the guesthouse to mount my telephoto lens on so I can zoom in a bit on them huge bats. Below is the picture gallery of those Flying Fox Bats.

Granted, Flying Foxes are bats so they sleep during the day. Being nocturnal animals, they get active to feed after dusk and that’s when the shriek around the Royal independence Gardens heavily intensifies. However, the presence of Flying Foxes is apparent even during daytime hours and one can see them fighting or having sex on virtually every visit no matter what time of day it is. Bat fights are kind of funny because the opponents would still be in a position in which they sleep – upside down, but they would spread their huge wings wide to intimidate the opponent and would do their best to outshriek each other. There are thousands of them in Siem Reap so there is a bat fight on any given moment during the day.

Without further ado, this is the Flying Fox Bats Picture Gallery showing the blood suckers sleeping during the day: