Premature baby flying-fox nearly grown up: This is Lydia

Lydia was delivered prematurely by caesarean when her mother became entangled on barbed wire and broke her jaw and fractured through her hard palate when she tried to chew herself off the wire.
Here she is, about 3 months old, and a happy and confident baby who will go to creche next weekend, which is the next step on her journey to freedom and life in the wild.
When the hand raised babies are 3 months old, they go into a creche, where they join other orphans and form a group. They learn batty etiquette and how to live in a batty society. They shrug off their human mums and want to be with the other batties. When they are emotionally and physically ready, and uninjured, and around 4-5 months old, they’re put into a release cage under a colony and they can integrate into the colony and fly out with the wild bats. If they can’t find enough food, they can always come back to the cage for a feed. Support feeding is put up on the outside of the cage for as long as they are coming back and eating it. When the colony flies out for winter, they have fully integrated and fly out with them.
Thanks Ellen for the video footage.

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