Typical of a female who was warned all her life about Rabid Bats and Bats stuck in your hair (horror movie shit) I flipped out and threw the board. I ran for my life. Hey, I have a lot of hair, okay? But, in tossing the board, I dislodged the poor Bat and before I could get down the stairway and shut the door, he beat me to it. He was in the house. I was alone, except for a new baby, who was not much help. I am not good at killing things that don't need killing, even a Bat. After I got ahold of myself, I put my hair in a tight bun and went after the thing. He was bumping and flapping around the second floor like Vincent Price was after his ass. When he got exhausted, he came to rest on a set of very expensive and horribly ugly custom drapes that came with the house. Holding my breath, I jammed my old bathrobe over him and carried the whole bundle out to the back deck. I threw it over the side. It landed in the yard, far below, and I watched.
He managed to find his way out of the bathrobe, but, then he just crawled around the yard. Flapping. I was like, WTF? Why didn't he just fly off? Maybe he had Rabies!? I watched him off and on all afternoon and just when I had decided for sure that something was wrong with him and he needed to be killed, my husband came home with this asshole friend of his with him. The asshole friend actually knew something (for once in is dumb asshole life) and he laughed at me and told me, Bats can't take off from the ground. They need to drop from a height to get launched. What??
To make this long boring story shorter, I'll cut to the chase. Asshole was right. Once the Bat was placed in a tree, he took off with no problem. But, the whole thing made me so curious about Bats that I went to the library and got books on them. Turns out, Bats are our friends. They eat masses of the annoying insects, like Mosquitos, that torture us all Summer. If it wasn't for Bats, we wouldn't be able to sit outside at all. Also this 'all Bats have Rabies' crap, is just that. Crap. Bats are no more susceptible to Rabies than most other animals. I will be 61 this month and I have never seen a Rabid Bat. I have seen other Rabid animals, but, not a Bat. I also decided they're pretty damn cute. That one in the attic must have been terrified when this giant woman woke him from his nap. I became a Bat lover after I read about them and began to sit on the deck at dusk, when they wake up, and watched them go out to hunt. I still do that here. I love watching the Bat dance in the sky. They are amazing and move so differently than birds. It's like they have some dark magik in them. They are really quite beautiful in their own way.
As for the Bats that were in our attic, I decided to leave them alone. It wasn't a big enough colony to worry about Guano or anything, and what's more Goth than Bats? But, if you do have them in your attic and you want them out, just build them some Bat houses and attach them where you'd like the Bats to live, then wait for dark, when they leave to hunt, and seal up your openings. Done. And no Bats killed. Besides, it's illegal in a lot of places to kill off Bat colonies. Besides being just uncool. I have become such a Bat lover now that I have helped injured Bats or Bats who get stuck on the ground. Poor things. And when you look at one, who's not pissed off, up close, they are the cutest dang things. Little pointy faces and dark liquid eyes. Furry cuteness, with those strange hairless umbrella like wings. I wish we had Fruit Bats, they are too cool. But, our little ones are cute too. Give a Bat a break when you see one. You don't have to dress it in baby clothes, but, hey, don't smash it with a tennis racket when you can just throw a towel over it and take it outside. Be sure and put it up high so it can fly away. Oh, I also found out that that hissing thing is just a defense when they're scared. They really don't want to bite you. Usually when you talk softly to them, they understand you mean no harm and they calm down. Amazing creatures, Bats.
7 comments:
I would agree that they are somewhat cute, but I cannot abide by them living in my house, nor anything else that creeps in the walls. I envision them peeing and pooping all over and it totally freaks me out. Last year, I woke up to one hanging on the curtains in my bedroom...very close. I lost my shit and ran out of the house and locked myself out in the process. My neighbor got it out for me and we let it go. Unfortunately for me, the health department recommended a series of rabies shots. You have 10 days from a suspected bite to start the shots...I waited 9. Since rabies is fatal, I bit the bullet, so to speak, and got the shots. Downside...super expensive, but upside...invincible against rabid animals for about 10 years. Since we all encounter those every day, I'm sure it was totally worth it...
They are cute, and I like seeing them in flight, but am always worried that they will accidentally fly into me. I've toyed with the idea of bat houses along the cemetery, here, for years, but am still just marginally freaked out, so I have not done anything about making or buying any.
Always interesting to read here, Pat. I didn't know that they could not take off from the ground. Some years ago, we went, to a little, stocked fishing pond. We really did go too late in the day, as it was getting to the darker side of twilight when we got there. There were larger bats flying around, and I could swear that one dropped to the ground about 5 to 6 feet away, and was hissing at us. We left again shortly, but I have often thought about that side-trip, and how creepy that was.
Christina
Love reading your blog, very eclectic and normally on topics that I know very little about. Would love to learn more about your gothic victorian house. Extreme lover of old houses/buildings here. Currently doing my masters in world history but will eventually do a program in historic preservation as that is my dream job.
I've only seen the small ones. And I've only seen three of them. They were hanging on my fence. I was living across the street from an old school at the time.
I guy I worked with made himself a project of making bat houses hoping to attract fruit bats since he'd them around. He had a blast with his project, and "if you build it, they will come". They did.
Nope. But I have to laugh, this reminds me of Barney Fife and Thelma Lou in that cave. He told her you have to be careful of bats, "they will land in your hair and lay their eggs!". Cracks me up every f'g time.
Bat's in my house? No thank you. We have found some tiny bats, dead on the ground a few times. And have seen them swarm thru on a few summer evenings. Of course, me and my kids ran inside as soon as we saw them. We didn't want bat eggs laid in our hair!!
Rox
Bats are sweet!
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