Bats kept surging out, and soon four columns stretched miles across the sky. A few strays looped and fed near us, passing like shuttles through the weave of the trees. The night was noticeably free of insects, but that was no surprise. These bats would eat five thousand pounds of insects that one night alone.

The Moon by Whale Light, and Other Adventures Among Bats and, Crocodilians, Penguins and Whales, Chapter 1 (p. 59), Random House, Inc. 1991