Hub and Spoke. Audio Collective. You are listening to nocturne. I'm Vanessa Lowe. Each evening as dusk begins to descend, bats emerge in massive columns from caves all around the world and circle like winged dancers up into the sky.

It's hard to believe that in almost 10 years of nocturn, this is the first episode devoted to bats.

I vaguely thought about it for years, but it wasn't until I came across a book published in 2015 that the vague thought became

complete and utter fascination. I don't even remember how I came across the memoir, The Secret Lives

of Bats, My Adventures with the world's most misunderstood mammals.

But it sat on my shelf for a couple of years before I did more than look at the incredible pictures.

Finally, a few months ago, I sat in a chair in my living room, immersed and engaged, laughing,

crying, stomach in knots, and feeling like, no realizing that, I was reading an intense and important drama that I

couldn't put down. Its author is the conservationist writer and wildlife

photographer Merlin Tuttle, a mild-mattered man in his 80s, who's been hailed as having done more for bat conservation

than anyone in history. I've come to think of him as a cross between Mr. Rogers and Indiana

Jones in the world of bats. His passion and

singular focus have landed him in some interesting situations.

We're in Africa looking for frog eating bats to study and I see a small herd of

elephants. One of the herd had already started as charge. The elephant smashed

into the back of the land rover and we escaped.

We managed to drive faster than it could run.

I was inadvertently left out one night

where there was a man-eating tiger.

My first trip to photograph bats in Africa, there was a bug that bit and these things were

biting me under the water. I would have to look every so often to make sure there wasn't a crocodile in the area.

And about that time, I heard lions, the whole pride of them,

...