Sorry, guys. Bat Goddess hasn't had a lot of computer time lately. (Okay, so blame Facebook for hogging.)

Back to bats...almost all of my experience is with the Little Brown Bats that had set up housekeeping under our roof (literally -- in the few inches of space between our sheetrock bedroom cathedral ceiling and the roof itself) for a few years. Nursery colony -- so every first week in July the adolescent bats would go out on their own for the first time and get lost and end up in our bedroom. (They managed to get in alongside the chimney.) The young bats' wings were still growing at the rate of about 1/8 inch a day, so no wonder they got confused. We usually just left the window open (and slept in the guest room for the night). Never found any bat skeletons, so they all got out okay.

Found a tiny bat on the foot of my bed one early Spring morning. I was afraid of hurting it if I touched it, so I slipped a paper towel under it and took it out on the deck for mama to find. Had one adolescent try to "walk home" one night -- across Tom's shoulders. When Tom leaped out of bed it sort of startled him. Turned on the light and the little guy was looking very disgruntled on the floor in front of the dresser. Alas, he didn't find his way out that night. I ended up scooping him up out of my bath the next day. Carried him in a collander (I wore stove gloves -- nothing else, just stove gloves) while I dripped down the stairs and out on the quarterdeck. Fortunately, I live in an area where I can stand starkers on my deck without scaring anyone. Took the cover of the collander and dripped back upstairs to continue my bubble bath. Little guy evidently got home okay. Then there was the one in the bedroom when I came home from getting an award from Hampton Rotary. He landed in the pile of clothes on the wicker rocker and when I went over to try to get him into a basket to walk him outside, he just climbed up the front of my blouse and hung on. Carried him downstairs and set him down on the table on the deck. I'm sure he got home okay, too.

Whenever I think I might have to handle a bat, I use the thick leather stove gloves as a precaution -- if they're nervous or afraid, who knows what any animal -- domestic or wild -- might do. Here in New Hampshire rabies is usually found in coyotes, raccoons or skunks. Lord knows we've got plenty of them, but people seem to worry more about the bats who are usually healthy. Obviously avoid a bat acting strange or sick, but most of them are fine. Try to keep bat guano on the garden, not in your house. Probably more health hazards from bat, squirrel and mouse & vole poop than from contact with the animal.

Which reminds me, I've got to clean flying squirrel poop out of the closet now that THEY'VE moved out. (Not sure whether the bats chased out the flying squirrels or vice versa, but both of them seem to have left this "wildlife refuge" -- not that it was a refuge from the cats!)

I like bats a lot -- they're very peaceful devourers of mosquitoes. I prefer their living quarters to not be directly above my bed because they make a heck of a clatter & chatter when they arrive home after a hard night's hunt, but I like having them in the general vicinity and enjoy seeing them swoop across the driveway when I come home from work.

Linn