Bats

[core_opsis]

 All summer long there have been little turds on the bridge right outside my back door.  They look like mouse turds, only a little bigger, and a little more ragged on the ends.  I never thought that much about them.  Animals do, after all, poop, and it was outside, and who am I to say what poops where.  I run a continual battle with mice indoors,

Comments

[asakiyume]

This is a great story. I've never seen a bat up close.

At least you'll know if it does come back: the poops! I hope it does come back. (But be careful about close contact, as bats are prime carriers of rabies.)

Nighthawks eat mosquitos too!

[core_opsis]

Well...I sure wouldn't mind having nighthawks, but am not sure how to attract them. I saw a red bat up close, sleeping in one of my high bush cranberries. There was one at Quixote's house too, sleeping in a persimmon tree (red bats sleeps in trees rather than crannies). I also recall my biology teacher keeping a bat.... Beautiful creatures--definitely mammals.

[asakiyume]

Sleeping bats! How cute! Another thing I'd love to see.

Do you harvest your cranberries? Do you cook with them?

[core_opsis]

Well...they're not REALLY cranberries...they're a kind of vibernum (I don't know if that's spelled right). I myself don't particularly like them, though maybe they've just not been ripe when I've tried them before. Cooking might be the answer.

[salyey_marya]

this is a terrific story! - i once lived in a house with a narrow attic space full of bats. i never saw them indoors, but at 5 pm, when i came home from work and took a short nap upstairs, i could hear them move shortly, as if they all had turned around asleep, it took a minute or two, then: silence.

but i did have enormous amounts of mosquitos...

[core_opsis]

Did you ever smell them? I've always wanted to have bats, and of course it's an amazing sight in Austin to watch them all come out from under the bridge at dusk.

[snaky_poet]

No bats here, but the next door neighbour says we have a beautiful big carpet snake living in our roof. He has seen it entering and exiting. This would explain why the cats no longer bring in mice - the snake is taking care of them first.

[core_opsis]

Oh! That would be lovely too. I've known people who've had black snakes in their basement--and they had no mice either. :-)

[snaky_poet]

Wouldn't want that here. In Australia, black snakes are deadly!

[core_opsis]

Here, they're the best kind of snake to have--black rat snakes--they eat a lot of rodents, and are beautiful besides.