Yesterday AM, my wife noticed something on our living room sliding screen door. The sliding glass door, in front, was closed. I went over and took a look. It turned out to be a small brown bat hanging onto the screen door. Last time I seen any bat was when I was in high school in northeastern Indiana. Anyway, I grabbed a broom and tried tapping it off of the screen, from inside the living room. It spread it's bat wings and just moved a few inches. So, I grabbed a spray bottle full of water and sprayed it. It finally let loose of the screen and flew to the corner part of our patio (on the floor). I couldn't see where it landed. I seen a couple of residents outside and told them about it and they seemed not to care at all. So, this morning, I sent an e-mail to our office/manager and told her about the bat. Living here for, just short of four days, three years, we have never seen a bat before. Never seen a bat when we lived in Colorado before. However, after doing some research, found that Small Brown Bats are found/seen in northern Colorado.
I grew up in a very old home outside of DC that was infested with them...and with squirrels. At dusk you could stand outside and watched the bats flow from the attic. Any object tossed into the air immediately had a bat or two circling it as it fell to the ground. When you pulled down the folding attic stairs, you bounced them twice to scare off any bats that might be clinging there (to this day, I've needlessly retained that habit.) Bats in the house was not a routine thing, but it was not rare, either. (Get yourself a tennis racket.) The best part was leveraging the post-bat paranoia. Sisters + Paper Airplanes + Fft Fft Fft Sound Effects = Immeasurable Fun
First thing that came to our minds was the movie, The Great Outdoors, with John Candy and Dan Aykroyd. A bat wound up in their lake cabin, both families got out of the cabin and they dressed up in some ridiculous looking gear and went in to get it. And, yes, they used a tennis racket to get it.
On the small hog farm, my step-parents/Guardians had, during summer months, there were always bats, and not small ones, flying around near the barn. My step-dad had an Over/Under Shotgun/.22 to get them with. The shotgun part, that is. One time, before I moved in with them, my step-dad was coming home from work and my step-mom went into the basement to check on the fire in the wood furnace. After she closed the steel door to the stove, she turned around and a bat flew out of the wood pile behind her and into her hair. There was a window, right across from the wood furnace, where we'd store cut up wood for the furnace. Anyway, my step-dad had pulled into the driveway, opened the car door and heard my step-mom scream from the basement. Even with being born with one leg shorter than the other, and wearing a raised shoe, he ran into the house and down into the basement. Grabbed the bat out of her hair and twisted it's head and killed it. It definitely didn't have enough time to bite him. Dear step-mom lost a little hair, but at least it didn't bite her.
I've had two get inside the house. The first one no doubt dropped down the chimney and entered through a fireplace. But the second one I had closed off the fireplaces. And now there is no chimney. Was able to get each one into a wastebasket and release. They eat mosquitoes.
I agree. I like bats...not many mammals can say they've conquered gravity. When I first moved here I had a dusk-to-dawn light on the utility pole at my driveway. I used to sit out and watch the bats dine. In fact, I used to drive to the Washington Monument on a warm summer's weeknight and sit under the spotlights and watch the bats dine. THAT was quite the sight.
You know, there are so many things like that I wish I had done. But bat houses have to be pretty high up, if I recall correctly. And where I live, they don't really need man-made habitat.
we wanted some bat houses here...there's lots of them coming up from the old boiler chimney over at the school...but...after researching it...they need lots of sun...open area with water they can skim..etc...
I see bats around here when I take Ella out at night. Bats are good animals to have around, just not in the house.