Colony of Flying Foxes Soar Above Queensland Beach at Dawn

A Brisbane man visiting Queensland’s Inskip Point filmed the moment a large colony of flying foxes flew over the peninsula’s Rainbow Beach at dawn on January 22.

This footage, shot by biology PhD candidate Ehsan Sanaei, shows the megabats, also known as fruitbats, flapping toward the beach’s tree line in what Sanaei said was a “daily migration”.

Sanaei told Storyful the flying foxes spend the daylight hours “hanging in the canopy of Inskip Point’s trees.” At dusk, they fly for kilometres to nearby Fraser Island “to feed on fruits and blossoms.”

“Just before sunrise, they form a massive group again and fly back to the Inskip Point,” he said.

Flying foxes are the largest members of the bat family and are a common sight in the Fraser Coast area. Three species of the winged mammals inhabit the region: the black flying fox, the grey-headed flying fox, and the little red flying fox. Credit: Ehsan Sanaei via Storyful