Tag: Fruit Bats Cambodia

What Do Flying Foxes Eat?

When I first saw the Flying Foxes of Cambodia, I was overwhelmed by their size and strength in numbers. Being bats, they sleep during the day but as it starts getting dark in Siem Reap, they all wake up and need to feed. With thousands of them living in the trees of Royal Independence Gardens, I could only imagine what kind of a blood bath it must be when they all get munchies. Afterall, that’s what bats feed on, right – blood. At least that’s what bats are known for? But if these Cambodian Flying Foxes feed on blood of living creatures, there must be a major carnage happening somewhere each night. There are thousands of them in those trees and they are huge. Or could it be that they don’t feed on blood? But if not, then what do flying foxes eat?

Photo: Nice Capture of a Flying Fox In Full Beauty
Photo: What Do These Flying Foxes Eat?

I first wondered about what Flying Foxes ate when I strolled through the Royal Independence Gardens with Ha. I was on a mission to take some pictures of them flying during daytime hours and as I kept being focused on how many of them there are, I couldn’t help but search for signs of blood bath these presumed blood suckers cause in the neighborhood every night. And I really didn’t have to go far to stumble across dozens of dead birds scattered across the greens of the gardens.

Photo: Dead Bird Underneath Bat Trees, But It Was No Bats That Killed It
Photo: Dead Bird Underneath Bat Trees, But It Was No Bats That Killed It

From the beginning, I was pretty darn sure that all those dead birds were the work of flying foxes but when I noticed the sales of live birds taking place behind the Preah Ang Chek Preah Ang Chorm Shrine and saw what happens to those birds after release, I have quickly ditched my initial guess. No, those dead birds in the garden were not the doing of Fruit Bats, those died because of selfish human behavior.

In my continuous search for answers to the “What Do Flying Foxes Eat?” question, I realized that perhaps there is a reason why Flying Foxes are also known as Fruit Bats. Could the word “Fruit” just before “Bats” signify what these flying foxes eat? It sure could and it does. Flying Foxes don’t feed on blood of living creatures. Flying Foxes eat fruit, hence the name “Fruit Bats”. Jungles of South East Asia are full of mango trees, banana trees, guava trees or papaya trees. Fruits from these trees are a staple of their diet.

Photo: Fruit Bats Sleeping Upside Down
Photo: Fruit Bats Sleeping Upside Down

When night falls on Siem Reap and you look up, you will see swarms of Flying Foxes filling up the sky as they are migrating towards their feasting grounds. There are endless clouds of them flying against the darkening sky. Now I understad that this is their daily (or should I say nightly?) rite. They don’t sleep where they eat. They prefer to fly the distance to munch on fresh fruit and then fly the same distance back to spend the day sleeping atop the trees of downtown Siem Reap. They don’t care about insects, birds or other living creatures. That’s perhaps the reason why none of the locals heed them in any way. Despite their intimidating size, they are harmless to humans. They are harmless to all living things. The only people who don’t like Flying Foxes are farmers who are not amazed when their fruit gets eaten overnight. And because of their size, one flying fox can down several fruits in one sitting. But it’s the numbers of bats in each colony that makes them a nightmare for farmers. It doesn’t matter how many fruit trees you have, if it gets marked as feeding grounds by a colony of flying foxes, you could find your trees stripped of all fruit overnight.

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:

Cambodia Flying Foxes – Huge Fruit Bats (Pteropodidae family)

As soon as I could recognize what was making that loud shriek I could hear from a block away I was impressed with extraordinary size and numbers of these bats. These bats are locally known as the Flying Foxes because truly the reference to a flying mouse would be highly disproportionate to their actual size. I would have never thought bats this huge exist. As I have later found out, Flying Foxes belong to the Fruit Bats sub group (Pteropodidae family) and some fruit bats are known to grow this huge. There were thousands of these flying foxes high up in the trees and since it was dusk, they were all waking up and started getting active. It took me a while to recognize a shape of a bat against the dark blue sky, especially since I’ve never seen a bat of such humongous size.

Cambodian Flying Foxes aka Fruit Bats Flying High in Crowns of Tall Trees in the Royal Independence Gardens
Cambodian Flying Foxes aka Fruit Bats Flying High in Crowns of Tall Trees in the Royal Independence Gardens

This entire place had an amazingly magical feel. First of all I found myself amidst beautiful garden with pathway lined with huge trees tops of which were a dwelling place of monstrous bats and secondly, in the middle of it all there was a small-ish, but gracefully illuminated shrine which was incredibly busy because it was the first day of Pchum Ben Festival and both nearby Ya-Tep Shrine as well as Preah Ang Chek Preah Ang Chorm Shrine are believed to gain magical powers this time of year allowing Buddhist devotees to deliver their food for the dead. I was impressed how none of hundreds of people visiting the shrine would pay any attention to overwhelming numbers of huge flying foxes above their heads. And similarly, none of the thousands of bats flying over the shrine would care about any of us humans down below. It was such a sense of incredible harmony between men and nature my heart felt like jumping out of my chest with joy. I’m very environmentally conscious and seeing animals strive in an area close to humans gives me some hope for our future as the species.

Oddly enough, as I have found out later, flying foxes or any other kind of bats that can be found throughout Cambodia are habitually killed for food. Virtually anything that can be eaten, is eaten in Cambodia. Not only bats, but also spiders, cockroaches, snakes, toads and whole lot of anything that has meat on it. Luckily for Royal Independence Gardens flying foxes, because these gardens are right opposite Royal Residence and because of presence of holy Buddhist place (Preah Ang Chek Preah Ang Chorm Shrine), killing these fruit bats was strongly prohibited here. The Royal Independence Gardens were a safe-haven for Flying Foxes. It was a sanctuary where they could peacefully live and breed and both they do. They truly strive here.

Fruit Bats Waking Up from Their Dwellings in High Trees Into the Night in Cambodia
Fruit Bats Waking Up from Their Dwellings in High Trees Into the Night in Cambodia

I have fallen in love with Royal Independence Gardens immediately after this first exposure to it. I have fallen in love with shriek these bats make and with their sizes and numbers. This became my most favorite place in all of Cambodia and I would visit often, especially if I didn’t particularly feel well.

The shriek of Flying Foxes was like poetry to my ears. There were so many people around, but all I felt like doing to to take off my camera, walk up to the walkway amidst the trees where the bats live, spread my hands wide, kneel down and say: “Come to me, my babies. I have arrived at last!”

Photo of Flying Fox Fruit Bat Taken in Siem Reap During the Day
Photo of Flying Fox Fruit Bat Taken in Siem Reap During the Day

Call me a freak, this is how awesome Flying Foxes sound. It’s an insanely loud and hair-rising shriek but when you see the power these bats wield given their numbers and size, it makes you feel powerful as well. Fruit Bats were for the win. They never seemed to have come too low to get close to people and during the day, when they slept they were inhabiting highest branches of the tallest trees in the gardens. They kept their distance from people and none of the Cambodians seem to pay any attention to them. Everyone acted as if there were no bats there. Nevermind the deafening noise and blatant presence. I must have truly looked weird having been completely captivated by them.

Busy Entrance to Preah Ang Chek Preah Ang Chorm Shrine with Flying Fox Bats Hovering Against Dark Sky Above
Busy Entrance to Preah Ang Chek Preah Ang Chorm Shrine with Flying Fox Bats Hovering Against Dark Sky Above

Since it was already dark, taking pictures of fast flying Fruit Bats was extremely difficult. I also only had wide angle lens mounted on my camera so my options for capturing a decent photo of Flying Foxes were narrow (basically equal to none). So instead I went and visited the Preah Ang Chek Preah Ang Chorm Shrine which was entirely immersed in haze from burning incense sticks. Hundreds upon hundreds of them. I was unspeakably grateful for my bicycle because it was just thanks to it that I made it to this magical place on this evening. I could not have been asked for a better place to be on the first night of Pchum Ben Festival.