I had a batly visit a few evenings ago. The dogs had been fed and were out; for a few brief moments all was calm on the home front. In the kitchen, writing at my post. I have a bad habit of leaving the door open, just to increase circulation when the AC is not on. Of course not only circulation is increased, but bugs a plenty, and in this case something larger.
A shadow passed between me and the lights a few times, and I thought, moth. Then realized it was too big for a moth, but it was so quiet, and kind of late for a bird, and then I looked up and saw it: BAT!!! Eek!!! Definitely an instance when you would like to say, honey, there’s a bat in the house, come help!!!
Something from my childhood kicked in: Get the broom!! Before it flies into your hair!!!! So we danced through the kitchen and dining room a few times, and I ushered it out. The dogs thought this was all pretty cool, me waving the broom and making anti-bat noises.
Back to work for a few minutes, til dark shadow #2. Did I not shut that damn door??? Yup I had so I don’t know where this guy had been hanging (hah) out. He was more tenacious, and had to be ushered through the front door into the cool bat night. Not however before finding a screen in the mudroom and doing that creepy bat crawl up it, til I nudged him off.
The dogs were getting the scent by now and this was pretty exciting, the scent, the noise, the broom, the dance, the electricity and my hair standing just about on end!!!
There are bats up in the attic I should tend to. They come flying out at twilight, both cool and creepy but they don’t bother me. Though one morning, a little. Up even earlier than normal, around 4:30, I looked out the kitchen window in the pre-dawn light to see, like, a flock of bats happening in the back yard. Pretty wild. Huh, I thought, time to call some bat experts.
Because care is needed should they need to be removed. The bat population has been devastated– some estimate losses as high as 80% in the Northeast–by white-nose syndrome, a fungus first seen in 2006 a few counties over. The fungus disturbs the hibernation of the bats, who become agitated and go out, in the winter, for food, only to starve to death. Two artists I wrote about last fall who live in the Hudson Valley, Nick Kahn and Richard Selesnick, have included the plight of the bats in their multi-media work, Truppe Fledermaus, check it out.
So if I am seeing bats this time of year, that is as it should be, perhaps a good sign, even. Just, maybe not so much in the kitchen.
Tune in tomorrow for more from bat haven central. Same bat time, same bat channel.