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Get Thee Out Of My Room, Chiroptera!
14 years ago
General
Soooooo...I had a rather interesting night. Aside from it being ridiculously hot and me feeling like a piece of pottery in a kiln I got a late night visitor. Let me set things up. It's about three in the morning. I'm lying on the floor with every fan I can find blowing on me.
Cue odd noise.
My blinds are clanging. At first I think it's merely the fans blowing them around. But the sound, it's not regular. It's coming at irregular intervals. Roused from my shallow sleep, I sit up. Something buzzes me. My mind jumps to a conclusion. Moth. Why is there a moth flying around? How'd a moth get in here? Still feeling muzzy I put on my glasses and get out my flashlight.
Ah, there it is. Wait...no. That's not a moth. That's a bat! There's a bat flying around my room! How in God's name did a bat get in here? How in God's name do I get it out? I grab my colander and a large piece of cardboard and set about treating it like a giant moth.
Come here you little bastard...
After a couple of minutes I manage to catch the thing on my window screen, only to watch it crawl out the side. My piece of cardboard was too small. Fuck.
A larger piece of cardboard was found and the contest continued, the bat flying from one end of the room to the other and me ducking like a soldier being buzzed by an enemy plane. After about ten minutes of this I manage to capture it and take the angrily squeaking bat outside and release it.
Finally. Back to sleep.
Not quite.
About an hour later, the same sound. Oh God no...
Oh God, yes! Another bat had made its way into my room. Same process. The bat swooping about and me flailing wildly trying to catch it. This pattern was broken up by the bat taking refuge next to my heater. I had to remove it poking at it with my tripod, the first useful thing it's ever done for me. Eventually the bat flew out my open door, at which point I slammed it shut and silently delegated the task of catching the bat to whoever encountered it next. I had better things to do, like sleep.
Cue odd noise.
My blinds are clanging. At first I think it's merely the fans blowing them around. But the sound, it's not regular. It's coming at irregular intervals. Roused from my shallow sleep, I sit up. Something buzzes me. My mind jumps to a conclusion. Moth. Why is there a moth flying around? How'd a moth get in here? Still feeling muzzy I put on my glasses and get out my flashlight.
Ah, there it is. Wait...no. That's not a moth. That's a bat! There's a bat flying around my room! How in God's name did a bat get in here? How in God's name do I get it out? I grab my colander and a large piece of cardboard and set about treating it like a giant moth.
Come here you little bastard...
After a couple of minutes I manage to catch the thing on my window screen, only to watch it crawl out the side. My piece of cardboard was too small. Fuck.
A larger piece of cardboard was found and the contest continued, the bat flying from one end of the room to the other and me ducking like a soldier being buzzed by an enemy plane. After about ten minutes of this I manage to capture it and take the angrily squeaking bat outside and release it.
Finally. Back to sleep.
Not quite.
About an hour later, the same sound. Oh God no...
Oh God, yes! Another bat had made its way into my room. Same process. The bat swooping about and me flailing wildly trying to catch it. This pattern was broken up by the bat taking refuge next to my heater. I had to remove it poking at it with my tripod, the first useful thing it's ever done for me. Eventually the bat flew out my open door, at which point I slammed it shut and silently delegated the task of catching the bat to whoever encountered it next. I had better things to do, like sleep.
you know, if you wake up in a room where this a bat loose, you're supposed to get tested for rabies- because if they bite you when you're asleep you won't feel it. apparently.
I'm not too worried about rabies. I'm already vaccinated against it.
V.
I found a deadish one in Morril Hall that I've been drawing, but a live one would be so much better.
Is the semi-dead one still there? If so, I want to go try and find it.
Chaz and me have been plagued by mysterious guano manifestations in our house. For weeks I could not figure out where the little incontinent buggers were getting in. Chaz suggested that they were getting in through the central air ducts. "Aw bulllshit!" I said. (or something like that). After extensive searching, I narrowed it down to the last possible route by which they could get into the house: Yup, the central air ducts.
As I was closing these ducts in an effort to keep them out, I heard a soft noise. It came from near the next vent. As I looked about, suddenly I was kamikazed by a little squeaky-bat! I cried out like a little girl and barricaded myself in the bathroom.
When I peeked out the door moments later he was gone. I spent the next 20 minutes clearing every room in the house looking for him with no luck, so I set about sealing up possible gaps where bats might get in, spending another half hour trying to stop up any gaps with expanding foam. As I was heading downstairs, I turned the corner and there next to the wood stove was the bat-- just sitting there on the floor looking at me!
I was certain he'd fly right at me and adhere to my face like an alien face-hugger but he just sat there looking at me. I backed away looking for something to snare him in. I didn't want to hurt him, just put him outside.
I grabbed a small trash can, opened the front door and advanced on the fuzzy little echo-locating squatter with my bat-snare, certain he would leap at me with rabid fangs at any second. He was close to the woodpile so I only got him half in and half out of the trash can where he squeaked and buzzed in anger or alarm, poor thing. Worried I would hurt him, I lifted the waste basket and he kinda crab-walked on his wingy-legs and snuck into the woodpile between some logs. =/
That's when I decided I could take the small woodpile in it's little caddy outside and just let him go so I took the whole shebang out on the porch and set it down so I could move the wood and set him free. As I got down to the last few logs, he suddenly crawled out like a wanted felon giving himself up and sat there on the porch and looking at me. He squeaked and chittered and buzzed in his batty way and was so cute I rushed to get a picture with my phone.
As I fumbled with the photo app and trained a flashlight on him for good exposure, he walked to the edge of the steps and flew off about 1 second before I could snap a photo. Drat!
Thus ended my batty adventure. There are more bats living in our roof though, and tomorrow we will be working to allow them to escape without injury but set up netting so they can't get back in. I hope to maybe put up a bat house in a nearby tree to house the little fledermäuse comfortably in their own place. =)