Oregon Zoo photographer and videographer Michael Durham is also one of the world's foremost wild bat photographers. His work has appeared in The New York Times and BBC Wildlife Magazine among other publications.

As a child, I was terrified of bats. They embodied everything frightening and mysterious about the dark places of the world. Eventually though, my fear was replaced with admiration for an animal that has evolved to live and hunt in complete darkness. As a working wildlife photographer, I have long realized that the camera can be used to reveal secretive and rare animals in their true form – and that this is especially true of bats.

Finding and photographing bats is a considerable challenge, but I have been lucky to team up with bat biologists as they work in the field. The locations are often remote, rugged and difficult to reach, especially when carrying the specialized equipment needed to photograph fast-flying bats.

Recently, I found myself in Kentucky with a rope around my waist edging into an ancient limestone sinkhole well after dark. Mosquitos and chiggers were feasting on me as I captured images of endangered gray bats flying out into the forest for a night of hunting. It took six hours to set up the equipment for this moment and it was 4 a.m. by the time I wrapped up.

In 2012 I traveled to Tennessee with researchers Joy O'Keefe and Vanessa Rojas to search for the northern long-eared bat, a species that has nearly been wiped out by a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome. This disease, first documented in 2007, attacks and kills bats as they hibernate for the winter. In some areas, it has killed off 90 to 100 percent of the population. We found a few northern long-eared bats in the Cherokee National Forest – however, while we were looking we also found a female big brown bat. She was missing fur around her face and body, and had holes in her wings – scars from the white-nose fungus. She was in pretty bad shape, but she had survived and was hunting despite her battered appearance. I decided not to photograph her simply because I did not want to interrupt her hunting – she needed every calorie she could get if she was going to survive.

Watching bats flit around in the dim light of the evening is one of my favorite activities – an experience I recently shared with my daughter in Central Oregon. We talked about how each of these acrobatic fliers can eat hundreds of insects a night – and how they experience the world in such a different manner than people. Despite all of the recent work to study and understand bats, many aspects of their lives remain a mystery. And yet bats make up 25 percent of all mammal species.

In our household, in order to help bats, we don't use insecticides. During the spring, when bats raise their young, I stay out of any known roosting areas. I respect gated caves and mines since these are designed to protect bat habitat. Most of all, I always say a positive word about bats to anyone who cares to listen. And of course, I'm hopeful that the bat images I have captured educate and inspire new generations of people to conserve and respect all wildlife – even if they are a little bit scary.