Flying Foxes of Northern Queensland
There's a particular kind of silence that falls over Queensland at dusk, right before the sky fills with wings. Thousands of them, dark shapes unfolding from the trees, flying foxes heading out into the night. I had the chance to stand under that sky and, more than that, to help tell their story.
My work was to take the science — the data, the research, the technical language that so often keeps fascinating creatures locked away in academic papers — and turn it into something a child, a tourist, a curious stranger could hold onto. Something true, but alive. I wrote the panels that would greet visitors at the interpretation center, translating biology into wonder without losing an ounce of accuracy along the way.
But the flying foxes were never the whole story. Behind every colony there are people: founders who built a sanctuary out of conviction, caretakers who show up at dawn for animals most of the world misunderstands or fears. I wrote their stories too — the human side of the work, the hands behind the wings — so that visitors could meet not just the species, but the people devoted to protecting it.
I also built the visual language of the project: photographs and videos that the center could use long after I left, a way of making sure the work kept speaking even in my absence.
What stayed with me most is this: flying foxes are extraordinary — intelligent, socially complex, capable of things that quietly dismantle every assumption people carry about bats. Getting close to that complexity changed the way I see conservation work, and it changed me a little too. It's one of those experiences you carry with you, one that keeps shaping how I understand my own work.
"...I had never felt so much adrenaline all at once, and I never thought I could actually enjoy being afraid. Being alone in the jungle, in a little shack made of wood and mesh. A jungle with two faces — one by day, when most animals and insects stay hidden, and another by night, when everything wakes up and the sounds turn surreal.
When the daylight faded, the bats would drop fruit pits onto the tin roof, sounding like projectiles. I could hear footsteps constantly moving through the dry leaves, and hoots, chirps, and fireflies would take over the night — the thickest, darkest, most alive night I had ever known. I remember looking through the mesh and seeing nothing, the total blackness of mystery, a door wide open to imagination. The recurring question: what am I doing here? And the certainty of not wanting to be anywhere else but right there..."