Speaking of noses and "non-cute" animals, I used to do a bat count for a few years when I lived in Oklahoma. I forget which species we were counting, but we'd go into the caves once every winter to take a survey of the hibernating bats.



They all slept together in big clusters, but the density of the clusters varied from year to year. At the start of the trip, we'd have to count individual bats in clusters to get a feel for the density. Once we had that feel, we could estimate the number of bats in a cluster using little formulas that we'd make at the time. For instance, my formula would often be that if I spread my hand, rotated at the wrist back and forth, and put my hand on the ceiling, I'd hit 70 bats. Of course, I wouldn't do anything at all to disturb them, but I could stand under a cluster and get a feel for how many times I'd need to do this to touch every bat. Seven "hands" of bats would be a cluster of 490 bats.



The point of this story is that the initial counting to get a feel for density was a little difficult. I found myself staring up at two or three hundred bats and trying to remember which ones I'd already counted. They're hanging upside down, so I'm looking in their faces and seeing 300 little pink noses. I always joked that some year I was going to bring a black felt-tip marker and dot them as I was counting. When I'd go home at night, I'd see little pink noses every time I closed my eyes.





Bill
-----
It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

[ Show Entire Thread ]