Grey-headed flying-fox: Doug Gimesy’s wildlife muse

Grey-headed flying-foxes have a neat trick for taking a drink on hot days. They can’t just land by the water – so what do they do?

Cooling off: a grey-headed flying-fox. Picture: Doug Gimesy

Grey-headed flying-foxes have a neat trick for cooling down and having a drink on hot days. These large native bats can’t just land by the water’s edge, like a bird, because then they wouldn’t be able to take off again – they can only launch from a roost in the trees. So they take a high-speed pass over the water’s surface and briefly dip their belly into it, then lick the water off their wet fur in flight, or let it drip into their mouth once they’re back in the roost hanging upside-down.

Doug Gimesy shot this individual on a hot day at the Myuna Wetlands in Doveton, Melbourne. Patience is a ­virtue when shooting wildlife, and Gimesy has it in spades: he spent hours standing chest-deep in the water – being careful not to dunk his $24,000 prime lens – and used a fast shutter speed to freeze the action when at last the opportunity ­presented itself. Isn’t it lovely how his image captures the fine detail in the splashing water and the bat’s expression?

Gimesy had a high-flying career in the pharmaceutical industry before deciding a few years ago, at the age of 54, to reinvent himself as a conservation and wildlife ­photographer. Grey-headed flying-foxes are a favourite subject because they play a key role in the health of our forests, flying dozens of kilometres every night to ­forage on nectar and fruit, and in the process pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds far and wide. Over the years Gimesy has racked up 158 days in the field (he keeps meticulous notes) photographing them at Melbourne’s Yarra Bend and Myuna Wetlands colonies, for his long-­running, acclaimed series on flying-foxes. He’ll often shoot a couple of ­thousand images per session, using a “burst” mode on his camera that shoots 20 frames per second.

It’s a creative, fulfilling job, but not a lucrative one. (“How do you become a conservation photographer with $100,000 in the bank?” he quips. “Answer: you start ten years earlier with a million.”) And now, another lifestyle change beckons: he’s making a seachange move in a few weeks from the big smoke to a hamlet near Apollo Bay. Only thing is, there are no grey-headed flying-fox colonies down there. “The ­nearest one is probably in Geelong,” he says. “Sadly, this will have been my last summer shooting them.”

To see more of Doug Gimesy’s photography go to:

https://gimesy.com/