Bats From The Past

I just glanced out my porch door/window, and I saw something that is still almost as fascinating as the first time I noticed it: bats in flight.

It turns out a small (as far as I can tell) colony of them live somewhere in the immediate vicinity of my house.  I do not know where exactly they live, but when the seasons grow warmer, and I am lucky, I can sometimes catch sight of them.  The first time, I just happened to look outside right at sunset, and it took a moment to realize what I was seeing when a silhouette when flashing past my field of view.  While our neighborhood is home to a very healthy community of swallows, who sometimes fill the air, their peak time is about an hour before sunset.  They were long abed, and their swooping flight is quite distinct from the flight of my sunset visitors.  It was a sort of flittering motion, combined with instant, on-a-wingtip changes of direction, and that was my big clue: anything flying like that had to be an insectivore, and there's only one creature that comes right to mind when one is thinking about insectivores that come out as night falls.  So I was seeing a bat!  That was a real first for me.

I could hardly believe it, but once seen, they are kind of unmistakeable.  I have never seen them well enough to tell their exact species, given how they are zipping about in near darkness, but they are small and I assume that if there are some near my house they must be from a species that is pretty common.

My only other encounter with a bat, besides the occasional glimpse of my neighborhood colony, was one at my mom and dad's house.  They have a lovely porch, with all the usual patio furnishings, including the table with an umbrella for providing shade.  Well, one day while I was there on a visit, a little black bat had apparently decided that the table umbrella (folded down at the time) was a perfect, cozy spot to sleep away the daylight hours.  Alas for the bat, we elected to go out to the porch to relax, and when dad opened the umbrella out, there was the poor little bat hanging there--and probably wondering what had happened to its great napping-spot.  Dad quickly called us all out so we could see it, and we were privileged to get a really close look at it. 

It wasn't long before it flew crossly off to a nearby tree, but I managed to snap this picture:

Just look at those adorable ears and nose!

That definitely ranks as my closest-ever encounter with these fascinating creatures.