It’s a wrap

By Tim Ecott

My house was on the slopes of Bel Air – not the one in Los Angeles. The fruit bats always came to sup on the mangoes outside the bedroom window. It was like listening in on a large and boisterous cocktail party as they shrieked and chattered and scolded one another while fighting for access to the ripest fruit. They would stay for hours, shuffling along the branches, making their high-pitched squeals and cackling hysterically, or so it seemed to a human ear.

Along with smaller, more cryptic – harder to spot – sheath-tailed bats, the fruit bats are Seychelles’ only endemic land mammals. With a wing span of a metre and a body the size of a small dog they are some of the largest bats on Earth. On these islands, they roost just below the ridges of the granite mountain slopes, sheltered from prevailing winds, but high enough to catch the rising thermals of late afternoon. The hour before sunset is the best time to see them cruising above the dense tropical tree canopy, sometimes flying several miles from one island to another.