A Bat Story

My wife suffers from the inability to sleep much past 3 a.m. So I was amazed recently when I woke up much later and she told me there was a bat in the house and I hadn't been woken by her terrified screaming. She said she had stifled her screams as she swung at it with a broom. She asked me to hunt it down and remove it.

But I've been down this road before and knew that searching for the bat was useless. They are such tiny creatures and can crawl into tiny dark spots and short of completely dismantling the house, I probably wouldn't find it until it presented itself again. I kept my eyes peeled all day but say nary a bat.

That evening my wife was disappointed that I hadn't seen the bat and was fearfully contemplating another early morning encounter. It was at that point, I learned that she had actually hit the bat with the broom during her first encounter, hard enough that it squealed at her. At that point, I figured that it had been injured enough that we would probably never find it until we found mummified remains or smelled it decomposing somewhere.

The following morning, my wife reported no bat encounters which seemed to confirm my injured bat theory. But after returning home after dropping off kids at school, my mother-in-law told me she had found the bat during the night and not only that, caught it! Above is the present she gave me.  I don't know how on earth she caught the thing in that box but I'm guessing the cloth inside it played a part somehow.

I shook the box gently and the bat was still alive so I took it outside and released it on the back patio. At that point, I wasn't sure if it was an injury, the daylight, or the fact that the temperature was just above freezing, but the bat just sort of laid there occasionally moving it's nose. I left it along and a half hour later it was gone so I'm assuming it was just cold and stunned and not injured. So hopefully the bat is now back where ever it likes to hang out during the day and eating its fill of obnoxious mosquitoes and other insects by night. 


 

Comments

  1. I would think he'd get in the house again however he entered originally.

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    1. Possibly. But hopefully he won't stumble upon the long convoluted route he would have to take to get to the inhabitable parts.

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  2. Out house in Michigan, we had to be careful to keep the fireplace damper closed when not in use, or bats would come in! Glad you were able to release it and hurray for your mother-in-law!

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    1. The old farm house I grew up in got lots of bats in through the wood stove with a damper ajar. We would hear the rustling and mom would close up all the doors to other parts of the house and then we would have to let it out of the woodstove and chase it outside.

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  3. I'm pleased this had a happy ending (we think). Bat are so beneficial, I hate to see them come to harm.

    p.s. I tried commenting on your last post on Monday and again on Tuesday. I'm not sure why they're not going through.

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  4. They are very useful creatures but I certainly wouldn't want one in the house.

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    1. I don't particularly like them in the house either. I've been in caves with feet of guano all over the floor.

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  5. Well, I'm glad the bat is getting another chance at life. Fingers crossed that it recovers!

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    1. Now that I'm reading the comments and looked at the box again, it might have just been short on oxygen as that box has a tight seal and I don't know how long it was in there. But it soon departed so I'm pretty confident that it still lives.

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  6. Poor little bat! Did you give it a name? I would have called it Joe after England's cricket captain. He is a great batsman.

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  7. Usually where there is one bat there are many more. Your Mom in law is a real trooper catching it herself!

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    1. Oh there are literally thousands flying around every evening so I know there are more. Yes, I was very surprised that she had caught it.

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  8. Our bat population s very low as they've had a disease. I haven't seen one for many years.

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  9. Three cheers for your mother in law. Hope the rest of his little bat life is not so eventful.

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  10. Being whacked, then oxygen depravation. It looks kind of young. I'd love to hear the story of how she caught it. Hopefully it wasn't snuggled in her jammies! Linda in Kansas

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  11. Oh, it's so cute! Glad the woman power in your life could handle the task and also glad you released it and it got away.

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  12. A few years ago, we did a cave tour. They're not big here, but it was something to see. They turned out the lights at one point so we could experience the darkness. Just them a bat flew by.

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  13. This is so interesting. I don't recall seeing bats at all while living in Illinois. Your wife reacts like I do when I see a spider. I really hate spiders. Bats are kind of cute though.

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