Bat'r Up
Every year we have bats roosting at our cabin. They usually arrive in May and stay the summer. Rather than a nuisance, we like having them around. When they're gone, we have Mr. Bat to remind us of our flying, furry friends. We found him floating on the lake one day while fishing. Now he gets to hang around to brighten our days and nights.
One of the first things I do when I return to the cabin is to check one of their favourite roosting spots, under the metal roof of the propane shed. The space is pretty tiny, but I found a Small Brown Bat had already moved in. It's probably a male, because the females usually group together to raise their young. And that's usually up under our cabin roof. It can get pretty noisy both at dusk and dawn when they wiggle in and out.
It was hard to get a picture, but here's the little guy under the roof of the propane shed. It's amazing he wants to be in such a confined space. I usually think of bats in large caves. It must also get extremely hot on a sunny day right up next to the metal. 
From past experience, we know they will stay until September. That's how long it takes to raise their young and get fat on the local insect population before they fly off to their winter homes. I guess losing a little sleep is a small price to pay when you get to see nature up close and personal. Besides, they take care of a large part of our flying insect problems. Do you have any experiences with bats? I'd love to hear your stories. -- Margy
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Wow, that is so cool. I didn't realize there were bats in the area. We used to have bats flying around in our back yard back in Britannia Beach but I've not seen any here in Powell River. You are very lucky indeed.
ReplyDeleteMargaret
Very cool. What a rare sight. Thanks for that interesting treat.
ReplyDeleteWe have no bat stories - although I heard on the local public radio station that there is a colony(?) down in Orange County by a walkway/overpass type of bridge and they had to be careful not to disturb them when doing some roadwork.
No experience of bats, but I did enjoy reading about yours. I too would not complain about some noise if I was able to witness some nature up close like that.
ReplyDeleteWe love our bats!
ReplyDeleteHow do you not end up with Fricasee of Bat? Damn, it's gotta be hot under there!
ReplyDeleteInteresting little creatures. We saw a bat flying over the soccer field last week, probably looking for mosquitos.
ReplyDeleteenjoyed the bat story and photos! when I was kid the bats came out at dusk, obviously to catch the multitude of insects that also came out at dusk. I believe my Dad told us (my sister and me) that if you threw an object, such as a ball, up in the air the bat would follow it down...we tried it and it works! using their radar no doubt...honing in on the object and probably thinking it was a extra large delicious insect. another time a bat came down the chimney of the wood stove in one of the bedrooms. caused quite a bit of excitement...apparently we all had visions of being bitten or having our blood sucked out...either my Mom or sister managed to catch him in a cloth and get him back outside with no bites or blood letting! ;)
ReplyDeleteI would love to have some bats around our trailer we use on the weekends. It would help our insect population too!! Great post!! Thanks for visiting Take Six. :)
ReplyDeleteOh i bet they will get that area pretty dirty soon with their droppings. We have a lot of fruit bats visiting during the lanzones season. We have 4 trees and whatever wrappings we do on the fruit bunches, they are still able to open and get the fruits. They know very well when the fruits are already sweet, because these fruits are sour if still not fully mature in the tree. But i haven't seen them clearly in the dark, only hear their shrieks.
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for stopping by to comment on my Critter post.
ReplyDeleteTheanne - I'll have to try the ball trick and see what happens. I hope we never get one inside. Sometimes I worry about the ones living under our roof chewing through the tar paper, but so far so good.
Kalantikan - I guess we are fortunate because our bats eat flying insects. Their dropping are small hard pellets like small mouse droppings. And ours don't shriek, but they do scratch around in the ceiling during the summer, waking us up at dawn.
Margy