ChiropteRogues

Date

Incident Report

Co-worker discovered this bat in the stairwell, on the wall about 10 inches up from the floor. Since it had obviously been disturbed by building work and needed bulking up, I coaxed it into my net, gave it some repti-aid soup, took it home for the night, and feed it meal worms. Also, I took lots of pictures.

This is apparently not the same bat I had in December (it didn't seem to have a clue about the meal worms at first), but it obviously knows a good thing when it finds one and opted not to fly away when I set it on the window sill the next night. Instead it bolted back inside, so I got more worms, gave it more "soup" and will try to release it again this evening (the 5th).

It's been a really long time since the last bat. So long that I was beginning to think I'd never see another one. But the building's new owner is having a lot of construction done, and that apparently woke up this guy.

I talked to a rehabber who said that it's very difficult to try to keep an insect eating bat through the winter and the best thing to do would be to feed it up (they can eat their body weight in insects daily!) and let it go outside once there's a bit of a break in the weather so that he can find some place else to hibernate for the rest of the winter.

I also checked with a bat biologist who recommended essentially the same thing with the caveat that I should try to get him hydrated before releasing him, and that I also ought to wait two hours after his last feed before putting him outside so that he can digest his food properly before returning to hibernation.

I bought a bunch of meal worms and wax worms and have been using tongs to poke them in his face. As soon as he realizes he is chomping on a yummy!bug, I let go of the worm and he slurps it up. Kind of like spaghetti. If you had to chew on it all the way down. And it wiggled. So maybe more like calamari....

It is incredibly gratifying when you answer the phone and the first thing the caller says is, "Thank God you're there!" It is extra-specially gratifying when the second thing the caller says is, "I have a bat." 

This was the first time I've had the opportunity to use my impromptu bat studio which is a lampshade on a lightbox. The results were mixed, and I think I'll be able to do better next time, but the primary benefit was that I was able to give the poor bat a drink before letting it go outside.

More pictures in my bat set on flickr.

I still have no good way to constrain a bat here: While I was looking for a solution (so that I could bring it to a rehabber rather than putting it out in the cold), the bat made the question moot by flying out the open window.

As it happened, he was able to borrow a pool skimmer from his neighbor. It was on about a 10-foot pole, but the head was detachable, so I duct-taped it to a handy broom to make it more manageable.

The bat was hanging from the frilly blue curtains in his daughter's room (the daughter and the rest of his family were away visiting relatives).

I set the net over the bat, which obligingly flew into the netting. Unfortunately, the net wasn't deep enough for me to flip it over to contain the bat, so I held it against the window shade while my co-worker opened the window screen. Then I quickly slid the net down and out of the window, and  the bat flew off into the night.

It was in our warehouse by  the time I found it, having flown in the open warehouse door, and it was very fast and kept landing briefly on the walls and then making feints at the main office doorway which menaced our warehouse manager, so I didn't even try to take a picture before I caught it.

When it was in the net it basically looked like the bat from Dec. 20th, so I set the net down by the open window to get a box for a make-shift bat-and-wrangler safe photo-booth, but the breeze from the window flipped the net open and the bat flew away.

This is the best picture I got of it: It's really hard to manipulate an animal you can't touch. I need to bring in an aquarium with a screen lid that I could use as a bat studio to get the wing shots my cousin in Canada wants.

By the time I arrived, today's bat had already been handily trapped between the window and the screen by the guys at the company down the hall.

The only problem was that every time they tried to raise the window and open the screen to free the bat, it climbed down to the bottom and tried to get "out" meaning, "back into the office space."

The solution was to take a couple of signs and open the window enough to slip them under the bottom edge of the window, thus boxing the bat away from our hands while we raised the window enough to open the screen. Then we closed the window, removed the signs, and the bat found his own way out through the open screen and flew off.

The pictures, taken through the glass and horribly back-lit, aren't great. I took a couple of short MPJ movies, but they're huge files, so I have to figure out how to compress them before I can post video clips.

Finally edited to add: 10 seconds of batty goodness, plus a six-second encore (via youtube).

We lost power dramatically when the transformer down the street from us blew up again (it, or one very much like it, did this about a year ago and resulted in months of PSNH tearing up our back parking lot).

I cannot begin to express how frustrated I was. And then, on account of the building having gone dark, the people down the hall had a bat.

Since I was on my cell phone (no power=no phone system=no dial tone on the office phones) on hold to PSNH, I took the phone and my net and went off bat-catching.

I am pleased and proud to announce that I can converse with the utility company and catch a bat simultaneously. Go me!

The bat was on the wall near their ceiling and they didn't have a ladder, so I climbed from a chair into the window sill, at which, hey, scary-height-thing (for me) kicks in.  I managed to net the bat and took it outside. (Standing on the old metal fire escape five stories up is the part that freaks me out.)

31 July 2002

August is usually the height of bat season here in the Millyard. This year we've started a bit early, and with a new twist.

4 Sept 2001

15 Aug 2001

Having just gotten back from vacation, I couldn't find my net and forgot to try to take a picture of my after hours visitor. Fortunately, no one else was around to be bothered by him, and he apparently found his own way out during the night.

16 June 2001

Ok - clearly not a bat, but perhaps an accomplice?

8th
June 2001

Just when I was thinking we wouldn't seen any bats until August, this one stopped by. After the shipping guys came back to tell me I had a visitor, I found this one perched on the electrical conduit near the ceiling. Had to climb a ladder to offer him an escort outside, which he graciously accepted. (Ps. This bat was clearly a Thomist, as he took refuge, at one point, behind a stack of Aquinas books.)

30th August 2000

This was a very spry bat who stopped in to use the phone.

28th August 2000

Despite reports from two people, I was unable to substantiate the sightings of a bat in the hallway today.
(Aug, 30th bat pictured)

16th August 2000

Today's bat was a rather the worse for wear, down on his luck bat, dusty, and, in all probability, sick. One of the women from the company down the hall found him in her storage room.

11th August 2000

I was sitting at my desk when I heard a horror-movie grade shriek. Must be a bat. So I picked up my net and started out to the warehouse even before my co-worker had composed herself enough to page me. A bat had gotten stuck in the warehouse "in-box," unable to gain purchase on it's sloping acrylic sides or on the smooth plaster wall. Unfortunately I forgot to take a mug shot.

3rd August 2000

A page from the warehouse informed me of our unconventional guest. As I leaned over to grab my net, the bat did a fly-by of my desk. I followed it out to the warehouse, watched it bank back towards me, and caught it on its very next pass.