(continued from Part 1)
Maybe they were mates and one had called to the other. Anyway, I stepped back inside, closed the doors, and stood for some time observing their behavior and wondering what to do about it. When they left the room and headed upstairs I raced after them. After securing the doors of the rooms where Tesi and Amadi were sleeping, I went into Asa's room and found him and his friend watching just one bat flying in circles. The three of us sat there for a while, admiring the bat, trading animal stories, and discussing possible strategies. At one point the bat did come to rest on the woodwork of a window frame. (It's quite striking how small they get when the wings are folded up--suddenly more like a mouse than a bird.) I made one attempt at capture it as it hung there, using a modification of the box method (#1), but the attempt failed because the thing was not sound asleep and saw me coming. Eventually Asa's friend's mother showed up and asked us why we didn't just open a window. I had a ready answer for that, of course, but in the end we gave it a try; and in fact it wasn't long before the bat found its way out. We never did know what happened to the other one, but it stands to reason that whatever secret route they have for getting into the house would also serve for getting out.
Asa's Bat: Sometimes Method #4 works just fine: you open a door and it has the desired effect of making the inside and outside bat population densities as nearly equal as possible. Asa once found a ground-floor lap-flying bat when the rest of the family had retired for the night, and when he opened a sliding door (staying low to the ground and looking anxiously over his shoulder, he says) it worked like a charm.
To return to the other night: When I had finished reminding Tesi and myself that I was not so very much afraid of bats, I stuck my head into the room and verified that indeed there was a bat flying in circles. I stepped inside, crouching a bit, and closed the door behind me. My plan was to open that other door leading to the balcony, already mentioned in the Broomstick episode.
Nika was in the room, and I was surprised that she wasn't paying more attention to the bat. My first step was to simplify my life by getting her out of there; not only did I not relish playing Josh to her Magick, but I didn't want to have to think about her sneaking out on the balcony or getting underfoot. I caught her without difficulty and put her out in the hall, then opened the outside door and sat down in a corner to watch. The bat continued circling. My inner monologue went something like this:
"It keeps almost finding the way out. One of these times ... Hey, watch where you're going, buddy! ... Of course, I know it would never blunder into me--it has echolocation, right? ... Wow, that time it almost it found the door ... People always think a bat's gonna get tangled in your hair; that's a myth ... You can hear their wings, can't you? Not like owls, with those special stealth feathers ... Hey, you're nowhere near the Jesus, watch where you're going! ... Just remember, Tom, that little thing is much more afraid of you than you are of it ... Bats aren't even blind, either; that's another myth ... No way would it bump into me ... "
I got cautiously to my feet and opened the other half of the double doors, then returned to my corner.
"Oh, man, you were halfway out the door that time, what's the matter with you?! ... All right, I can wait. Just have to wait. Just a matter of time ... Not here, you fool, the door's over there! ... Oh, unbelievable, here comes another one."
Yes, now there were two bats circling. There didn't seem to be much to do except watch and wait. I was losing patience, talking out loud, whining, pleading. The most excruciating moment was when one of them went out and then came right back in. But eventually, one at a time, they found their way out.
The end.
A Salt Hygrometer
19 hours ago
11 comments:
I have never had a close encounter with a bat. On some very few occasions, in the forest at night, I've noticed bats swarming (if that's whaat they do) from a tree above me.
My small occasion to raise to heroic level is when there's a wasp or a spider in the house. The heroism is all in my own mind and consists of letting them out rather than killing them.
As if I were Buddha himself. I'm not. I can play hero with tiny enemies in small numbers. If I come over a nest, like we did with carpenter ants, twice, after buying our house, or if we hear a rat in the walls, like we also did, twice, I aim to kill.
I do heroic (as you call it) rescues of wasps and spiders. But we kill mosquitoes in our house, if only because they can carry dreaded diseases.
I really enjoyed your bat's chronicles. Thank you, Ø.
I have no problem with wasps and I quite like spiders, but I do a lot of removal work for the others. I put a glass over the wasp or spider, slip a piece of paper underneath and take it outside. I don't take bees outside, they're usually on their last legs. I give them some water and honey on a saucer, and leave them near a radiator. They mostly die without touching the honey, but it makes me feel better.
You guys must have had a way above average number of bat encounters. Unless you're thinking of moving, you might consider buying or making a bat extractor - something on the end of a telescopic pole. Would velcro work with bats?
Giving honey to the bees! That's not heroism, that's saintliness.
The story of velcro.
Well, who's going to equip the bats with loops, or alternatively hooks?
Today I went up to the attic to put something away, and I carelessly let Nika get in. She was coming up the stairs when I went down, and she easily evaded me. When that happens, there's nothing for it but to leave her there until she has had enough exploring. (We try not to let her get up there. Some years ago one of Tesi's dear old former cats once strayed from the attic of a house to the space beneath the floorboards and from there to the space behind a wall on a lower level, and had a lot of trouble finding his way back out, even with advice form her. It was a traumatic experience for both of them.)
I had to go out of the house, so I left the attic door open. Asa was the next one due home, and I told him that she might be up there but that she would probably reappear looking to be fed. I also pointed out that this blunder on my part might result in another bat in the house. The attic is an obvious way for them to get in.
Bats just look like they might stick to velcro. It's a hunch. I've been trying to persuade Alma to make a velcro saddle that you could tie around the horse, like a girth, and would work with velcro trousers.
To keep the bats out, can't you put wire screens over the attic vents & windows?
Oh, I suppose so, but I've never been convinced that that's how they get in.
And then, late last night, looking out of our garden window, my wife asks: «Those birds, are they really birds?» And for a long time we stood there, watching a swarm of bats circling above our garden. She even tried filming them with her digital camera, but we haven't seen how it turned out yet.
We live on the edge of a steep hillside or cliff, a hotspot for nocturnal insects according to our butterfly-collecting family friend/Catholic parish priest, so there should be bats, and I'm probably just incr..., no, credibly dull for not having noticed them for the 14 years I've lived here.
We think they came flying out of a tree in the hillside, but I suppose I'll have to take a look for batshit around the edges of the roof too.
All of us look without seeing, or see what we expect to see, some of the time. There is a kind of bird, a black-crowned night heron, that we see around the river near Boston at certain times of year. Most people (including me before Tesi pointed them out to me) no doubt see them as gulls (whitish, about the right size, flying near the water, ...).
Yes. We agreed that we'd seen the bats before, many times, without noticing them -- but maybe not in such numbers and for so long as yesterday. I hope to see them again tonight, but it probably have to get another hour darker. It's 10:30 and the sun's been down for an hour, but still almost daylight.
When I told about the bats at work, a co-worker suggested that they had relocated from a warehouse that burned down the previous night just below the cliff. Not impossible.
... it will probably have to ...
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