Monfort Bat Caves, Davao

I was privileged to tour Norma Monfort's bat caves on Samar Island, Davao last year. I learned about the foundation in place to protect this, the largest concentration of fruit bats in the world. We learned of their indispensability in assuring the night pollination of fruit trees and the efficacy of their droppings as fertilizer and as a disseminator of seeds.  We learned that they carry and nurse their young even while flying.  All this information changed my prejudice against bats as creepy pests and allowed me an appreciation of their importance in the environmental cycle which humans are dependent upon for survival. 

We saw the bats start to swarm at sunset which inspired this image of an Edenic landscape centered on the Biblical Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to which we are now anchored, for better or worse.