Bats

My earliest experience with bats was when I was about 11 years old.  My family was staying in a cabin in Maine, for a vacation.  My grandparents were there for the evening.  I was playing “war” with cards with one of my brothers when we heard a scream.  Grandma ran to the bed and pulled the covers over her head, soon followed by my mom, who called me under the covers with her.

My brothers were yelling and running around so I looked out from the covers and grandma was yelling, “a bat, a bat, get it!”  I guess we got under the covers because bats fly around and get caught in women’s hair.  I later found out this isn’t really true.  But it sure made for a wild night, until grandpa got the bat.

When I moved into a 150 year old, two-story brick house, that I bought in the late 1990’s, I found out that bats were not what I had previously thought.

I worked afternoon shift, and one night after work, I was going to sleep on the couch on the first floor.  I had a beagle that played games with the coons all night.  He would lay on the door of his box and the coons would come to eat his food and drink his water.  He let them start and would run out barking his head off.  Run up and down the run, and when he was sure they were back far enough, he went and laid in the door again.  Only to run out barking again in three minutes when they came back.  With no neighbors to complain, it was too much noise to sleep through.

So, I had just laid down and pulled a cover up to my chin, when I heard wings go about 10 inches over my face.  Jump up, lights on, saw a bat flying through my rooms.  Since I was there alone, I called a neighbor friend up the road and told him I had a bat in the house.  He told me to leave the lights on until the bat lands somewhere.  Put some heavy gloves on and get a towel.  Then move slowly and, with the towel in your hand, slowly close in on the bat and pinch lightly his wings together on his body.  I thought sure, he’s going to fly in my hair.  So I also put on a ball cap with all my hair tucked inside.

As I was getting close to the bat, he opened his mouth and kind of yelled at me, squeaky like, but didn’t fly.  He let me get ahold of him and pick him up and take him (or her, who knows) outside.  Cool, that worked great!

About a week later, my husband was in the shower and called me in to see what was in the tub.  It was on the tub floor and he said looked like a wet mouse.  I got close and it was a wet bat.  It must have been on the shower head when he turned the water on.  So, gloves back on and bat outside.  (My big brave husband)

This continued enough that we looked into finding out how they were getting in the house.  The chimney to the fireplace just happened to be opened to the sky.  The next weekend, it got sealed off.

The bats stopped getting in the house, but they were in both attics above.  One was a walk-in, and the other you had to use a ladder to get up in.  At first, I was so afraid of going in when they were there.  I thought they would fly at me and chase me out.  The fact is, they never flew at me.  They were hanging on the rafters and would yell at me, showing lots of teeth, but were never aggressive or menacing.  I guess they didn’t like getting woke up in the middle of their night, which was my day.

They were such an organized bunch, I would sit in the driveway at dusk, and watch them come out of the roof.  It was like clockwork.  They came out, one after the other, every few seconds.  I had a pond close to the house and had no mosquitos at all.  Those wonderful bats kept them ate up…

Plus, in October, every year, I would hear one bat squeaking in a cadence.  For several days this would happen.  Then about a week later, they were gone.  I think they migrated to Mexico, but they never told me where they went.  Then, in March, they were home again.

I really came to love those bats.  Mosquito clean up.  Plus, the free bat quano.  I’d go in when they were gone and sweep up all the manure, and put on my garden.  People pay a high price for that stuff.

Since I have moved, I see a bat once in a while.  I bought a bat house to put up next year to try and lure some here.  I miss watching them.