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Last night, J. and I were in bed, about to turn out the lights.
Swoop!
"What was that?"
"I think it was a bat!"
Swoop!
Indeed.
Now, you practically have to be Merlin Tuttle to like bats much more than we do. Probably it felt right at home because of all of the chiropteromorphic toys and decorations. But there's something disconcerting about lying in bed while a creature with a foot-long wingspan flutters a couple of feet overhead, no matter how cute it is, and even if it weren't for that, well, we didn't want the cats to get it.
Swoop!
So it seemed necessary to encourage the creature to go out into the night.
We managed to get the bat and ourselves closed off in the bedroom away from our excited cats and away from bat-friendly hiding places throughout the house. We opened the windows and turned on all of the lights, which as we knew from last year's close encounter was the Officially Recommended Course of Action, and then waved things in the air to shoo it toward the windows.
(I even tried having a bat finger puppet tell it in a squeaky voice to clear off, but for some reason that didn't work.)
After at least a half hour, it was clear that the bat was willing to swoop, dive, and flutter everywhere in the room except for those two window openings. Furthermore, it was obviously getting very tired, as it had begun to miss more often than not when attempting to perch somewhere, and we were also getting tired, and the likelihood that it would get hurt through our or its own folly seemed to be increasing. And so we left it hiding behind a bookcase, moved the cat box from the bathroom past our bedroom to the downstairs where the felines had been exiled, and slept in our "guest room" (a room empty but for a bathtub in which our spare futon just fits), leaving the bedroom to our wingèd guest, doors closed, windows opened, lights on. We assumed that as dawn approached it would finally find its way outside to eat some bugs -- so long as the open windows didn't bring it plenty of breakfast, of course.
(I dreamt that I set up a bat blind in the bedroom around dawn to watch it go, and saw that the room had filled up with stray cats waiting to attack it. I also dreamt that I wrote a sea chanty and gave it to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fenzle to critique, and he rated it at five points, but wouldn't say what the scale was: But I digress.)
I am assuming that we assumed right, although there are a couple of not-easily-checked hiding places in the bedroom. I guess we'll see when it gets dark. Or, more properly, J. will see, since I won't be home from the Athenaeum until 9:30...
But damn, was it adorable.
Swoop!
"What was that?"
"I think it was a bat!"
Swoop!
Indeed.
Now, you practically have to be Merlin Tuttle to like bats much more than we do. Probably it felt right at home because of all of the chiropteromorphic toys and decorations. But there's something disconcerting about lying in bed while a creature with a foot-long wingspan flutters a couple of feet overhead, no matter how cute it is, and even if it weren't for that, well, we didn't want the cats to get it.
Swoop!
So it seemed necessary to encourage the creature to go out into the night.
We managed to get the bat and ourselves closed off in the bedroom away from our excited cats and away from bat-friendly hiding places throughout the house. We opened the windows and turned on all of the lights, which as we knew from last year's close encounter was the Officially Recommended Course of Action, and then waved things in the air to shoo it toward the windows.
(I even tried having a bat finger puppet tell it in a squeaky voice to clear off, but for some reason that didn't work.)
After at least a half hour, it was clear that the bat was willing to swoop, dive, and flutter everywhere in the room except for those two window openings. Furthermore, it was obviously getting very tired, as it had begun to miss more often than not when attempting to perch somewhere, and we were also getting tired, and the likelihood that it would get hurt through our or its own folly seemed to be increasing. And so we left it hiding behind a bookcase, moved the cat box from the bathroom past our bedroom to the downstairs where the felines had been exiled, and slept in our "guest room" (a room empty but for a bathtub in which our spare futon just fits), leaving the bedroom to our wingèd guest, doors closed, windows opened, lights on. We assumed that as dawn approached it would finally find its way outside to eat some bugs -- so long as the open windows didn't bring it plenty of breakfast, of course.
(I dreamt that I set up a bat blind in the bedroom around dawn to watch it go, and saw that the room had filled up with stray cats waiting to attack it. I also dreamt that I wrote a sea chanty and gave it to
fenzle to critique, and he rated it at five points, but wouldn't say what the scale was: But I digress.)I am assuming that we assumed right, although there are a couple of not-easily-checked hiding places in the bedroom. I guess we'll see when it gets dark. Or, more properly, J. will see, since I won't be home from the Athenaeum until 9:30...
But damn, was it adorable.
