The Bats of Limekiln

After a camping trip along the Big Sur coast of California, I began to design a game involving bats that fly down a creek just after sunset to eat newly-hatched bugs.

I was camping at Limekiln State Park, just south of Monterey on California’s Central Coast.

I’ve been camping there annually for many years. Two years ago, we noticed bats just after sunset at the end of Limekiln Creek, where it enters the Pacific Ocean.

VIDEO: A colony of bats eating insects near the ocean entry of Limekiln Creek.

Where do they live?

Later research led me to believe these are Myotis lucifugus or little brown bats, which are very common in Western North America.

The next year we tried to discover where they might be roosting during the day. Was it in some of the park’s sparse buildings? Redwood stumps? Or the old kilns themselves?

This year we discovered at least one location. There’s a single-wide mobile home use by the vendor who manages the park for the California State Park system. We timed it just right to catch them coming out of the rafters for the evening near the creek.

VIDEO: A colony of bats emerging for the evening from the rafters of a mobile home used by employees in the state park.

Game ideas

Now I want to make a game for two people that has two of those bats racing down the creek and back again.

Along they way the can eat bugs to move faster, but they will also face natural barriers along the creek that slow them down, such as boulders, logs and a bridge.

I want to make it a two-part game; the first half will be the bats discovering the path of the creek using their echolocation (i.e. the players will create the path). The second half will be them racing back up the creek before the insects disappear for the night (i.e. the players will reverse course on the path they created).

Moths & owls

I also want to find a way to have them eat moths, since these bats are sensitive to UV light, and 80% of nocturnal moths' wings reflect UV light.

And owls are natural predators of bats; we saw them twice on the creek from our campsites!

Published August 20, 2022.