Indonesia: Rinca & Komodo – Kalong Island Flying Foxes

Kalong Island is a tiny islet merely 500 m / 0.4 miles in diameter densely covered in mangove trees. While nothing interesting during the day, at sunset it is an incredible site of thousands of giant flying foxes fruit bats rising against the red sky. As the the sky lit up super bright red in all direction, mangroves came alive first with sound then with motion. One by one flying foxes emerged. They are very large fruit eating bats, the wingspan is 3  feet; they looked like massive birds but you could clearly see the bat skeletons and body structure. First there were dozens then hundreds then thousands. They were rising above mangroves against the burning red sky of the sunset and then flying east.