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There's a bat flying in my yard


cjzimmer1
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and I realized I've never in my life seen one in the "wild" before.  I'm happy it's out there devouring mosquitos but it's a little unnerving walking out there in the dark and seen this thing swooping all over the place. I just really hope that it's not roosting somewhere in my house, but then I realized if not my house probably someone elses.  I live in a subdivision, it's not like there are lots of places for it to live besides houses and more houses for miles around.

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Just now, Terabith said:

Maybe you could build a bat house?

No thank you!  It was bad enough seeing it flying, i don't want to encourage it to hang around even if it is doing a good thing.  I'm not into rodents, critters, bugs, or really any animals.  I like cats, i tolerate dogs and that is my extent of any creatures in my life.

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5 minutes ago, barnwife said:

I am just over here, trying to wrap my mind around never having seen a bat (or bats!) in the wild. Who knew?

I spent 20 years living in the country (nearest neighbor was over a mile away) and we never had them there either.  I would have at least thought there they might have seen them but seeing them in the city really surprised me. They just aren't that common here I guess.

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I never noticed them until our last home, which we lived in for 20+ years.  There, they were completely unseen until the end of August when the weather started to turn cooler in the evenings and we'd see them in swarms, flying around the tops of our houses.  I guess when it was winter, they were just hibernating (often in attics!).  But I wonder where they were from April - July?

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I used to live in a neighborhood that had a hill and a large tree on top. There were city lights on the other side of the hill, so the tree was back-lit at night.  In the evening, from our house, you  could see the bats flying around the tree. Otherwise you would have never known they were there. We played on that hill and in that tree all the time. We never saw the bats, but they were absolutely there.  It was a huge, old tree, so maybe there was a hollow area, or we just never looked hard enough, I don't know. But we climbed the tree and never saw them in daylight. Thinking back now, I guess it was just a different time. It wasn't a bit deal to play in the bat tree. LOL  When a bat got in our house (only a couple times growing up), we just caught it in a towel and tossed it outside. Now days, it would likely lead to rabies shots and a few weeks of panic. Oy! 

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1 hour ago, KungFuPanda said:

We watch them fly around every night as the sun sets. It’s awesome. They eat mosquitos. There’s never just ONE bat. Don’t you have trees in your neighborhood? They’re likely nesting in there. 

I don't want to think about more than one bat.  La La LA I didn't see that!

I didn't realize they lived in trees.  I thought they needed more shelter than that. I always hear about caves, and roof rafters so trees wouldn't have occurred to me.  I guess bats just make me jittery, because the only time I really hear about them is when people find dead/sick ones in their houses and have to get rabies shots (and yes I know multiple people who this has happened to including my sister who had it happen in 2 different houses in 2 different cities).

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6 hours ago, Tap said:

I used to live in a neighborhood that had a hill and a large tree on top. There were city lights on the other side of the hill, so the tree was back-lit at night.  In the evening, from our house, you  could see the bats flying around the tree. Otherwise you would have never known they were there. We played on that hill and in that tree all the time. We never saw the bats, but they were absolutely there.  It was a huge, old tree, so maybe there was a hollow area, or we just never looked hard enough, I don't know. But we climbed the tree and never saw them in daylight. Thinking back now, I guess it was just a different time. It wasn't a bit deal to play in the bat tree. LOL  When a bat got in our house (only a couple times growing up), we just caught it in a towel and tossed it outside. Now days, it would likely lead to rabies shots and a few weeks of panic. Oy! 

We had a number of them in our home when the kids were very young.  At night, they'd sometime swoop right through our kitchen!  It never occurred to us to get rabies shots.  I wonder if it would now?

Edited by J-rap
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We get quite a lot of them, but we still have way too many bugs!  We talk about building bat houses every year, and never do. 😞

My favorite bat story is when my mom went to hang clothes on the outside clothes line and reached into the outside clothespin bag... Yup!

Sometimes it gets a little nerve wracking if they’re out flying around while I’m on my balcony, but they’re good helpers. And I don’t have an attic for them to get into.

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There are loads of bats here. They live behind the large wooden shutters on the exterior of our house.

The only time one has gotten in the house was when my dog found a dead, frozen bat in January and brought it inside. He was very proud of himself and his bat popsicle! He was vaccinated, but we got the bat tested anyway on the advice of our vet. It was negative.

My ds had a close encounter with a bat at work a few years ago and had to get rabies shots.

When I was a kid, we lived in an old farmhouse and bats got inside all the time. We used to catch them in coffee cans and let them go outside. Back then, no one even thought about the risk of rabies.

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We see a lot of bats, despite living in a dense city. I also remember seeing bats a lot when camping as a child. Maybe you just thought they were birds? We see a lot when we play tennis at twilight.

A few years ago, I was walking and noticed a few brown leaves on the street by my neighbor's house. I thought it was strange since it wasn't fall so I looked closer. It was a dead bat! I had never seen a light brown bat before.

Emily

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You are funny!  We have a bat that lives every summer on our back porch. Kids named him Bertrand. Some times he has a “friend” with him. Her name is Beatrice. I am super thankful for the bats.  They keep the bugs down. We live on some property in a suburb in Indiana. They winter in caves someplace around here. I worry about lots of other creatures way more than bats. (Except we joke we have our own little corona virus on the porch) I’d post a pic, but I can’t figure how to do it. 

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8 hours ago, cjzimmer1 said:

I don't want to think about more than one bat.  La La LA I didn't see that!

I didn't realize they lived in trees.  I thought they needed more shelter than that. I always hear about caves, and roof rafters so trees wouldn't have occurred to me.  I guess bats just make me jittery, because the only time I really hear about them is when people find dead/sick ones in their houses and have to get rabies shots (and yes I know multiple people who this has happened to including my sister who had it happen in 2 different houses in 2 different cities).

There are bat species that live in trees and currently those species are doing much better because they do not get the white nose disease that the cave ones are getting.  The cave species are being devastated by the white nose disease that is invasive from Europe and was brought to US by someone who went in a cave in Europe where the disease was and then used the same, uncleaned shoes to go into a cave in the US.

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We have tons around here. One time when my boys were little they found one sleeping in a tree. They showed it to me and practically had to touch it for me to even realize it was there! It was so well camoflagued that even after I knew where to look, I kept losing sight of it.

Last summer we rented a cabin in the Hocking Hills area of Ohio and we woke up to bats chittering and swooping through the air so close over our heads we could feel the air move over our faces *shudder*

Bats are cool and all, but that was too close for comfort! Plus, they are LOUD and we couldn't sleep. We caught at least 6 with a broom and the lid to a cooler and moved cabins the next day. They sent a pest control person out while we were packing up to move and he found about 14 of them in the flashing around the master bedroom window 🤤

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14 hours ago, J-rap said:

I never noticed them until our last home, which we lived in for 20+ years.  There, they were completely unseen until the end of August when the weather started to turn cooler in the evenings and we'd see them in swarms, flying around the tops of our houses.  I guess when it was winter, they were just hibernating (often in attics!).  But I wonder where they were from April - July?

The ones you saw might have been migrating. We have migrating bats come through this area in the fall.

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My son just finished building a bat house for a Scout merit badge and is outside installing it on a pole in my yard right now.  Mosquitoes LOVE me and I get so many bites just walking out the door that I would happily trade mosquito bites for a few bats!

My son was taking driver's education at the local high school a couple of years ago and the class ended right after sunset. I was sitting in the parking lot waiting for him and hundreds of bats flew out of the top of the school roof. I live close enough to the high school to get the advantage of all those bats!

Edited by mom2scouts
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16 hours ago, cjzimmer1 said:

I don't want to think about more than one bat.  La La LA I didn't see that!

I didn't realize they lived in trees.  I thought they needed more shelter than that. I always hear about caves, and roof rafters so trees wouldn't have occurred to me.  I guess bats just make me jittery, because the only time I really hear about them is when people find dead/sick ones in their houses and have to get rabies shots (and yes I know multiple people who this has happened to including my sister who had it happen in 2 different houses in 2 different cities).


So you don't want to know they also like attics? 😉 


Bats are pretty amazing.  Time to break out Stellaluna and fall in love with bats. 
Though, I admit, one evening we were at a friend's and my little girls came, squealing and excited, as they'd found a tiny bat sticking to a tree.  I assume mama had left it there with a plan.  We put it back and I admit that was a little too close.  We do have them in the evenings here as well and I love watching them swoop and turn.

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4 hours ago, maize said:

The ones you saw might have been migrating. We have migrating bats come through this area in the fall.

Oh that's interesting, and makes so much sense.  I don't know why I've never really thought of bats migrating!

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22 hours ago, Margaret in CO said:

We have a HUGE number of them--thank heavens! We enjoyed watching them at the campfire the last Scout campout. Bats are COOL!

 

We have tons as well, that start circling and swooping as dusk falls. Them and the fireflies. It's my favorite time of day in the summer.

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