Friday, June 13, 2025

Bats

 It's common for me to go outside on the back porch and enjoy a cocktail in the evening.  Recently, about the time the afternoon sky loses its luminosity and the neighbors' dusk-to-dawn light comes on, I'm seeing little creatures up across the sky.  Darting, turning, aerobatic creatures, doing impossible flights over the yard.

Bats.  We have bats.  Cool.   Occasionally, when they zoom close to the neighbors' light, I'll catch a flash of brown. Small critters, the common brown bat.  I've lived here for over 20 years and I've never seen bats. Yet, there they are.  I don't know if someone nearby has put up a bat house, or if they have just decided to take up residence.  It doesn't matter.  They are welcome hang out around here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool. Enjoy the aerobatics. If they are the right kind of bats, they'll eat some mosquitoes for you too.
I had a close encounter with a bat once when hunting deer before dawn from a high seat. There must have been a bat in residence, but it was out and about when I entered the hide in the dark. It was perplexed when it tried to come home to bed after dawn, but found a great big human sitting in its house. It tried a few aggressive near fly-bys, without success. A two ounce bat is not very intimidating to a 300-lb human. I sat still, and it eventually decided I was harmless and came in to roost upside down in a corner. Fascinating to see it up close. I have seen flying foxes at the night zoo in Singapore, and wild bats hanging under the bridges in Austin, TX, too. Enjoy yours!.

Anonymous said...

Like clockwork, every evening about 8:00, we have small bats fly over the yard. Fun to watch. We live in the country, Lafayette parish, on a few acres. Lots of barns and outbuildings are available for bat housing. There are more bats out there than we realize.