Nanaa Nanaa Nanaa Nanaa...Batman!

This week two intrepid runners (Dan and Mridula (me)) went on what can only be described as the world's coolest but oddest mission in a park in London. We went to be part of an audio and visual survey for bats in London.

Growing up in the era of the batman cartoons and reruns of the Adam West series, this mission was very exciting to me, if only to write up the run report with this title. I spent the week debating whether it would be ok to do this mission with a towel tied around my neck and some makeshift bat ears, or just wearing a batman slanket. I thought the better of it, and walked down to Kennington Park in a normal outfit.

Having had a busy week at work, I had not been able to do the detailed research about the task , I showed up completely unaware as to what to expect and a little bit lost. I finally figured out where the meeting point was and headed in the general direction. Helpful tip, if you are ever looking for a group of people trying to do a bat survey (or any activity not involving football), don't walk up to bunch of men playing football and ask them if they are there to find bats. They will give you a strange look and tell you that they are playing football.

The lecture of what we needed to do was in full swing when I arrived. This bat survey was to identify where the bats were in the park, using bat detectors. A bat detector is a device used to detect the presence of bats by converting their echolocation ultrasound signals, as they are emitted by the bats, to audible frequencies (thanks wikipedia). What this meant in reality was Dan and I standing around awkwardly pointing the detectors at the sky wondering what on earth we were doing.

We were told that if you heard the common pipistrelle it would sound like fast kissing. It was also when I discovered, that wandering around a park at dusk searching for kissing noises with a machine, might be the quickest way to get your DBS check revoked.

It was a good chance, though, to have a bit of a chat and go through the standard goodgym questions: 1) What's your borough? 2) How long have you been doing goodgym? 3) Coach runner/group runner/mission runner? 4) Are you doing the next x event (goodgym olympics) 5) What are you training for? 6) Do you know x.y and z person. First time interactions with people you don't know can be quite anxiety inducing, and sometimes it helps just to have a set of questions prepared.

30 minutes in and we hadn't heard any kissing noises (from bats specifically) and after a few false positives we were very much starting to worry that that this was all an elaborate ruse to gather people who are Twilight fans and make them look foolish (As someone who's read all the books, I deserve to be mocked). And then we finally heard it! It didn't sound like a kissing sound at all, but much more like twanging a plastic ruler on the side of the desk in middle school in order to look cool and nonchalant to your friends. Inevitably you end up smacking yourself in the face and being laughed at by someone you fancy. Chris Scott, from 7th grade, I still resent you giggling that one time and very much hope the years have not been kind to you.

I digress. Having heard the bats and even see a couple of them shoot past, we were satisfied with our task being completed and returned our bat detectors to the mission leader. We then were led out of the park, to head on our Saturday nights: Dan: Reggae clubbing, me: googling how to build a bat locator, and debating whether or not to get the batman slanket.

Another day, another mission done! Till next time folks!