Bats, Inc

 

The Bat Lady is coming again tomorrow.

I am very tired. I'm very tired because I'm not sleeping, but it's also true that the not sleeping—which I'm reasonably sure would be happening anyway—is aggravated by the fact that I'm now jerking awake every time I hear small fluttery and/or whanging/blundering noises. Yes, pipistrelles are ridiculously cute*—as several people have commented in response to last night's photojournalism—even their infinitesimal faces are cute. Some bats have pretty bizarre noses and ears and things from the whole echolocation apparatus. Pipistrelles look how tiny flying mammals with big ears ought to look.** NOW ASK ME WHY I'M SO SURE THEIR FACES ARE CUTE.

Because they've started looking back at me. I noticed this last night with Hermione—she was remarkably unfazed by the presence of a Very Large Moving Thing (with a small device that kept blinking a tiny red eye at her) in the same room with her. This afternoon's bat*** was snuggled up in a corner of hellhound blanket that had fallen outside the crate. Hellbat indeed: staking her territory. She was waiting for us. At, it seems to me, considerable risk to life and limb, since the first creatures through the front door are usually the hellhounds. And indeed Darkness was on her at once, but all he did was point his nose at her and wag his tail and when I, fearing the worst, went to drag him off what I could guess was a bat, there she was looking perfectly serene.

The thing that is bothering me is that they're acclimating. First few I found downstairs were either frantic or collapsed—you didn't know for sure if they were alive or dead till it—she—feebly tried either to fend you off or to grab onto the dustcloth for support. Today, having stared down a hellhound several gazillion [insert weight measurement system of choice here] times bigger than she is†, when I knelt down beside her—hellhounds firmly on sit behind me†† she turned her face up and looked at me. Tell me I'm anthropomorphising. Go on, I dare you. The ones from a week or a fortnight ago were either comatose or trying to crawl under the nearest wall, bathtub, tea caddy, whatever. They did not want to know, and they were not having a good time. Today when I picked her up she made a tiny huffing noise—not at all like the aggrieved hiss of the first one, so long ago, before I knew what I was involuntarily getting into, and when I put her down under the honeysuckle she looked up at me again. Little bright eyes. Furry face. Enormous laid-back ears. And that odd, sort of shovel-shaped line of mouth.††† AND JUST BY THE WAY, BAT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WANDERING ALERTLY AROUND THE HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AFTERNOON????? YOU'RE A BAT. GO ROOST SOMEWHERE—but not in my house.

When I went outdoors again two minutes later with a fresh saucer of water she was already gone. Not miserable and exhausted.

Okay, maybe this one is Hermione. Maybe Hermione is EMoon's original rebellious adolescent bat with a crush on the hellgoddess gig. I do find it a little ominous that she chose to land on the Mc shelf‡ even if the McKinleys are off on their own—unappealingly down at floor level—and then there was the bedding down on my All Stars incident. And the hellhound blanket? Doesn't it smell like LARGE PREDATOR for pity's sake? I know that bats are themselves predators, but—for example—sparrows and robins run away from peregrines. Adolescents with crushes do, of course, often behave like loonies.

Maybe there's only really one acclimating bat.

AJLR wrote:

She was on this beam several minutes. She'd stroll along for a while, and then she'd groom for a while, and then she'd stroll some more.

Uh oh! I hope she wasn't crawling along on a recce and muttering in her little bat voice 'this crevice looks just right for Ermintrude, and that one there could be for Esmerelda, and the one over there could have been tailor-made for Eadgyth and her group'!

Yes. This is exactly what I'm worrying about. The Aga means it's nice and warm in the cottage.‡‡ You know the reason the bat mums congregate in nurseries? Because the babies are born naked, and the crèche needs to be pretty large to have enough 50p-piece-size-naked-baby bodymass to keep them all warm while the mums are out hunting.

Anyway. Where I began: Yes, pipistrelles are ridiculously cute, and I may have to find out how to print out copies of the literary bat and the chandelier bat. BUT I STILL DON'T WANT THEM IN THE HOUSE.

AND IT'S JUNE. THE BABIES ARE STARTING TO BE BORN ANY MINUTE.

Handbells were a disaster today. I couldn't keep my mind on the business somehow.

* * *

* Although if they eat bugs on the wing, why do they need all those TINY NEEDLE-LIKE TEETH? It's enough to give you the wrong idea. Birds that swoop after flying bugs in a fairly bat-like fashion make do just fine with beaks.

** And lots of needle-like teeth.

*** Siiiiiiiiiigh

† Possibly four thousand times. Five gram bat. Forty pound hellhound. Somebody else can do the maths, including all that conversion stuff.

†† There was a certain amount of semi-suppressed mmmmmmmmmOOOoooh back there, and some hot breath down my neck. But the basic fact of surviving hellhounds is Don't Run, so in the absence of something to chase they were reasonably willing to be (reasonably) obedient.

††† She didn't open her mouth and display her teeth. Tactful of her. She didn't want to scare me.

‡ I think I've got everything Vonda's ever written. I may have missed one or two of Pat's books. I keep meaning to check this: I don't want any omissions. But order—feh. My bookshelves are in better shape since Fiona took me in hand, but I'm really not trustworthy.

Also I think the books hold square dances on book-solstices, and I don't think they always reshelve themselves very soberly after these occasions.

‡‡ It is comparatively nice and warm under the roof, but it is warmer indoors on the other side of the house from the nursery, where the Aga is. Today's been pretty much our first warm day—it's been a cold as well as a dry spring, and I'm sure responsible bat mums are worrying about this. Also, there are now saucers of water all over the frelling house for thirsty bats, since I'm assuming dehydration is a significant contributing factor to bat collapse. —Oh, frell, that's why the recent rescuees are so sodding alert and frisky. The point is, Esmerelda, Ermintrude and Eadgyth are probably now in high-level consultation about how to convince a cranky hellgoddess to put a nice cardboard box with a folded-up towel inside on the counter next to the Aga. GAAAAAAAH.