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.

My friend the Attic Bat

When did I see the Winter Bat in the Attic? Before xmas, right? Well, I think the same bat has gotten out of the attic and downstairs. On Tuesday night I was in the bathroom and I heard a noise, a flutter, a squeak, behind the wall somewhere. There was nothing in the bathroom to cause such a noise and it was on the other side of the room from the steam piped radiator. I stood still and listened and thought it sounded like an animal's rustle. I heard nothing after that. Wednesday I got up late and gave myself a clay masque facial and took a shower afterwards. I then got dressed and blew out my hair with the hairdryer. I put on a bra because I was leaving the house, and not just to walk the dog or shop anonymously as an old retiree, but to go to lunch at Hope and Olive. Maggie had sent me a text to give me a Good Clam Chowder Alert. I had sent her a postcard a few weeks ago begging for the good clam chowder and then last week a wee bird (Sarah Nelson Riley) told me that the clams had been ordered! So today was the day.

Ada and I descended to the first floor to find the large bat circling. I recalled that the Attic Bat was rather large also. Ada and I went over to the dining room, she silently, me saying, "oh boy oh boy, go away bat" or something. We crouched by her crate and I put her in. Unlike Pickles, who's incessant barking at the bats drove my blood pressure flying, she was remarkably silent, which blew my mind. This beagle has been known to be loud. I watched the bat and considered opening a window or the back door but was afraid to move. The bat was very large and circling low. Before I was able to screw up my courage, it landed behind a something or other on the shelf above the sink. I grabbed my bag and jacket and left for Good Clam Chowder.

I returned about 2 hours later, having done errands. Ada didn't give me any news about whether she saw the bat come out of hiding or not. I put her on her lead in the back yard and opened the back door. I did some chopping of ice on the back steps and general snow moving while waiting and hoping for the bat to appear. If it did, I didn't see it. I got my courage up and stood on a stool next to the sink. I pushed at the assorted flower vases and boxes stored up there and did not see anything unusual ( like a large brown bat! ) David came home and while I walked the dog around the block he left the door open for another 10 minutes and then closed it. It hasn't been seen since. We imagined something in the snow that the dog was intrigued with was the Attic Bat but it wasn't, it was a twig. At the thought of finding the bat dead in the snow (and, think about it, if we did find the bat and could do something with it what would we do? Kill it? Throw it outside where it would surely freeze to death, and in effect, kill it? No, I don't want that to happen. What if it found it's way to the bat house I have installed outside. That place is still very cold. The bat would freeze to death if it camped outside in there.) I was sad and did not wish death on my friend the bat. I hope it is still in the walls somewhere and will just stay there until May (when I leave for the summer and David can deal with it! ha ha ) when it can come out and fly outside without certain wintry death.

Winter Bat in the Attic (scream!)

My bedroom is on the third floor of the Bricker, which is actually the attic. Before I bought this house, the previous owners had redone the attic to be the beautiful room which I use as my bedroom, a second bedroom which is full of junk I need to throw out, a central room which is sort of hallway/alcove/office and then a unfinished room which runs the length of the house on the north side. It is this room which I call "the attic" because its undone walls, major slant to the ceilings and unheated attributes brings to mind, to me, an attic. I've been thinking about cleaning everything out of this attic every week, maybe every couple days, this where I keep xmas deco, old papers, boxes of Patrick's stuff I haven't been up to sorting yet, and empty boxes, old computer and suchlike packaging, maybe a few posters, collages, unused rolls of insulation, and an ironing board. I went in there tonight to fetch wrapping paper to do a xmas thing but I didn't make it in. I turned on the light, opened the door and immediately saw the tell-tale moving shadow of a bat flying in front of the lightbulb. Then, I saw the bat come at me and the open door. Happily, the lovely creature did not veer right but continued flying in the attic. I screamed with surprise and repulsion and closed the door as quickly as I could. I looked around for a thingamajig to put in front of the bottom door jamb, which was actually quite sizeable, maybe 3 inches of wide open space between the door and the floor. "What was that?" David asked and I didn't hear Ada run up stairs to see. "Bat!" I found a beach towel and used a few pieces of lumber to stanchion the fabric into a barrier. I decided I wouldn't be using my 4 year old xmas wrapping paper. We didn't have a bat all last Summer. I had hired a guy to get up on a ladder and secure the entire house's cracks and openings all along the roof and brick tops/edges. He finished securing the house in Autumn 2013 and there wasn't a bat until today, unless there was one unseen, which is possible since David had a busy Summer and I wasn't here from July-November. It has been many years since there wasn't any bats around the Summer Bricker. But there is a Winter Bat today! I like it if it stays in the attic (when I'm not in there). I'd like to go in there and take photos of my buddy.

now the wind blows cold around a door

Remember when I had a blog? I haven't had any bat experiences lately and who knows what is in store for the Spring/Summer, with the Bricker all closed up around the bats' access points. I was told by the animal security guy that the bats will be crazy to get into their old home and to not leave the doors/windows open because they will be sure to fly in. That caused me to decide I really should install a bat house or dwelling for them to access this Summer instead of my house. Meanwhile, I have a 15 minute solo set coming up this week and I really want to sound great. I'm nervous my hands will get all palsied once I am in front of people.

Day Off Sick

Lots goes on. I am cleaning my closet and found this dress. It no longer fits my body as I have changed since my college days, which is when I bought this in Syracuse at some second hand shop I was visiting with Roma. I would like to figure out how to change it so it does fit and perhaps a more interesting hemline. What a project that would be.

The Bat Who Waited For David

I did some bat research and found that they will fly UNDER a door, through that narrow doorjamb slot under a door, if that was a way they thought would lead them to cool night air and their ultimate destination, Bug Supper. There is a storage space near by bedroom which is connected to the attic crawl space by more porous means than my bedroom and improved hallway. I took some blankets and sheets and an old full length mirror and blocked the doorjamb slot so that the bats wouldn't be able to fly from the storage space to my bedroom area. It worked well. Until last night. Around dawn, or first light rather, Pickles wanted out of my bedroom. He's been doing this daily so I let him out. After he left the bedroom, I realized my mistake and his hunting cries filled the space. I closed the door and listened for him to chase the bat downstairs, where I could open some windows and bring the dog back inside the room until morning. His cries lessened after 5 or some minutes but I could still hear him rushing around making hunting breaths. He galloped up and down the stairs looking. Having to leave the bedroom, I creeped out and saw the bat on the wall, high up, in resting position. I closed my bedroom door and the hallway door, leaving the bat alone in that area and crashed in the lounge for a couple hours. Pickles gave up his hunt and joined me until David woke up and agreed to find and release the bat after a cup of coffee and a wake up interval. When he went upstairs he found the bat had migrated to the window screen in the hall and was able to push the complaining mammal out the screen and into the wide open. The bat was sleepy and grumpy and just hung around for a little while.

This is the guy hanging onto the Bricker this morning.

Bedroom Bat 2

Weird, this evening I was thinking, "maybe no more bats" and then Pickles woke me up barking and in the dark I could see a bat flying around my room. My door was open and he eventually chased it away, downstairs. It took a long time, like 20 minutes while I hovered under my blanket and waited for that to happen. When it did I put on my hoody and turned on lights as I went downstairs, closing my bedroom door and then my hallway stairs door and heard him barking away. I used the bathroom and then closed that door, opening the big 2nd floor hallway window and then I crept downstairs and heard him stop barking but still rustle around looking. I opened a window in the living room and lured Pickles upstairs with ginger cookies, closing the bedroom door behind us. Bat is hiding. Dog is dissatisfied. I want to sleep.

I hope bat flies away. Seemed smaller-definitely a new visitor.