Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Spring Bats Arrive

It's mid April and no bats have emerged in the Bricker. For the most part, I think the bat-proofing that guy did a couple Septembers ago is paying off. He told us to watch out for leaving windows and doors open because the bats will want to return and finding their usual cracks and openings sealed up, they will try to swoop into my home, which they think is their home.

On Sunday April 12, it was a warm and pleasant day. That evening I was coming in the front door with my arms full and when I put the stuff down all of a sudden two bats, kind of large bats (don't they always seem large?) were flying around the downstairs. A little buzzed and confused, I tried to crawl under a blanket. David took charge, putting Ada in her crate and opening the back door. I opened one of the front windows and sat on a chair with a blanket over my head watching the window so I would know when and if a bat exited. It didn't take long, maybe 5-7 minutes, for the bats to find the back door and go out of it. We are going with the assumption that they followed me in the house.

Last Monday it was a nice day and I sat on the back porch around sunset, looking up into the sky, watching for bats. I didn't see any. A mosquito tried to bite me.

OH, that Winter Bat!

So the Winter Bat did come back when I wasn't at home. I took a trip for a week in early March and while I was away I got a text from David: "Bat is now outside Ada had it cornered by back door." I felt bad. I hoped that the bat would live, even though it was continuing to be a snowy cold winter. Like I've mentioned before, I did put up a bat house on the sunny chimney. Perhaps s/he can hibernate there?

When I came back home, I saw the bat flying around outside, still March, still cold. I was heartened to see it but hastened to shut the door before he came back in.