There isn’t an exact count of bats shown in that image, but a close visual estimate puts it at around 150 to 200 bats in total.

≈ 200 bats total seems like a solid approximation.

#mabsdrawlloweenclub2025 · Day 28 · Topic: Swarm

At dusk, the cave held its breath. So did I.

The first sign wasn’t sight, but sound – a ripple, a whisper, like dry rain. Then the dark began to move. Bats, thousands upon thousands, spilling from the mouth of the earth in a twisting column. The air became alive, trembling with wings.

It felt like standing beneath a heartbeat made of shadows. They passed close enough to stir the hair on my arms, a cool flutter that smelled faintly of stone and dust. The horizon turned from gold to ink, and the swarm climbed higher, stretching into a ribbon of motion that reached beyond the last light of the sun.

I thought about how small a single bat is. Fragile, almost delicate. Yet together – a force. A breathing storm that eats mosquitoes and darkness alike. When they vanished into the night, silence returned in a softer key, as if the world itself needed a moment to steady.

The cave, empty again, exhaled. So did I.

#mabsdrawlloweenclub2025 #day28 #swarm #bats #nature #twilight #fieldnotes #nightmagic

#mabsdrawlloweenclub2025 – Day 28 – Topic: Swarm

Sunset poured itself over the ridge like melted sherbet – orange, pink, violet – that impossible in-between hour where the day exhales, and the night takes its first breath. Then, as if on cue, the air itself came alive. A ripple, a hush, a rising tide of wings.

The bats woke.

Thousands of them, black brushstrokes against the flaming sky, a moving inkblot that pulsed and changed shape with every heartbeat of the twilight. The sound – that soft, chaotic whisper of leathery flight – was almost like rain. Or applause. Maybe both.

Standing there, I couldn’t help but think: a single bat is small, almost fragile. But together – a swarm – they are a force, a living current, a tide of motion and instinct. Nature’s murmuration of shadow. The mountains bowed beneath their collective will, and the sun slipped beneath them, yielding the sky to the night’s winged inheritors.

Sometimes, strength isn’t in the singular. It’s in the group.

#mabsdrawlloweenclub2025 #mdc25d28 #swarm #bats #autumnmagic #roanokeva #blueridgemountains #doodle #digitalmarkers