While a bat (actually a flying fox) electrocuted itself on an electric wire in Melbourne two days ago, creating havoc for the eastern suburbs' rail system, by mucking up the whole signal operations and making commuters on those lines spend hours longer than usual travelling on slow trains - and waiting for trains, we had our own lttle bat problem here at home.
On opening the door to call the dog in for the night, a bat - not a flyng fox, but one of those very small bats that look a little like a mouse with a wing-span - flew into our living room. For a while it hid (where, we do not know) and then it began to make the odd flying frenzy, zipping around the room at an amazing speed, before hiding again.
Well, we know bats use a sort of radar to navigate their way around, but we also know that they don't like bright lights, so we turned on all the lights and waited for it to come out of hiding.
Which it finally did and proceeded to fly in ever increasing circles, at a seemingly ever increasng speed, towards the open door, but not out of the open door.
So, there I was, with a feather duster, leaping around, flinging feathers at the bat, never managing to be anywhere near it, as it flew so fast as to be almost invisible, except for a flash of black.
Finally, the poor exhausted creature settled in a corner of a book shelf. (I, too, was exhausted by this!) I fetched a small towel,and my brave husband slowly and carefully covered the little bat with the towel and carried it outside. We watched it (happily?) fly off into the night and hoped that no neighbours were watching our feather duster dancing, flinging and leaping.
A strange "work-out" at 10:30 at night.
On opening the door to call the dog in for the night, a bat - not a flyng fox, but one of those very small bats that look a little like a mouse with a wing-span - flew into our living room. For a while it hid (where, we do not know) and then it began to make the odd flying frenzy, zipping around the room at an amazing speed, before hiding again.
Well, we know bats use a sort of radar to navigate their way around, but we also know that they don't like bright lights, so we turned on all the lights and waited for it to come out of hiding.
Which it finally did and proceeded to fly in ever increasing circles, at a seemingly ever increasng speed, towards the open door, but not out of the open door.
So, there I was, with a feather duster, leaping around, flinging feathers at the bat, never managing to be anywhere near it, as it flew so fast as to be almost invisible, except for a flash of black.
Finally, the poor exhausted creature settled in a corner of a book shelf. (I, too, was exhausted by this!) I fetched a small towel,and my brave husband slowly and carefully covered the little bat with the towel and carried it outside. We watched it (happily?) fly off into the night and hoped that no neighbours were watching our feather duster dancing, flinging and leaping.
A strange "work-out" at 10:30 at night.