In the Night they swirl across the Sky

In the hills and low mountains of Thailand’s Sukhothai province, live millions of powerful predators. They are bats and, in this region, surprisingly small, only a little bigger than a mouse, if you don’t count their wingspans.

Every night, they emerge in their thousands, in batches, from their mountain caves, and sore into the sky. They fly together in unison, in beautiful vortex patterns that swerve and slither across the sky, like a Cosmic Snake. They fly all night in search of insect prey, sometimes for hundreds of miles, to the nearby cities of Chiang Mai and Chiang Lai.

So, they are not just millions of pretty, furry-winged faces! By eliminating millions of insects every year, they are a blessing to humans in their natural control of dangerous insects, like mosquitoes, the curse of modern medicine.

In this YouTube video, we watched their flight together with friends, one night in Thailand, one very magical night.