Nora Batty

[Mike Sibley]

We had a surprise visitor late last night.

11pm and I'd just closed the studio for the day and headed home across the back lawn. Made a coffee for myself and Jenny, a spot of supper, and took it all into the conservatory, which we use as our lounge.

Busy watching "24 Hours in A&E" when a large moth flew in. A rather BIG moth. OK... possibly not a moth...

We'd left the kitchen window open a couple of inches for fresh air for our old German Shepherd, Inka - diabetic and almost blind now - and a bat had found the gap. It was quite fascinating watch the bat flying around the room. Probably called Nora. All or bats are Noras... named after Nora Batty in "Last of the Summer Wine"

Although I had opened the double doors let her out, she instead landed on a dish of pine cones - very well camouflaged. So I had to pick her up to show her the way out. I resited the temptation to hold and study her, so I can't tell you what sort of bat she was. But very small and almost certainly a Pipistrelle.

Never a dull moment here

[Mike Sibley]

This is becoming weird! Last night (about 11:30) we found another bat crawling across the kitchen floor. I put it outside, checked on it after I'd fed the donkeys and it had gone.

Only... this evening Jenny called me in to remove another bat lounging about on our sitting room floor. Definitely a Pipistrelle. Lovely little thing, sitting in my hand chirping away to itself, no more than 1½" long. I'll check later to make sure that's flown away too. The strange thing is they sit in my hand without trying to fly away.

[LindasPencils]

I love watching the little microbats flit through the evening twilight catching insects under the streetlights. They are beautiful little creatures. I hope you take a photo of the next one that visits you.
I wonder what is attracting them inside? Have you got a light on that is attracting insects? Nora popping in for a midnight snack. Or maybe she just wants you to sit down and draw her portrait!
You must have a colony in the barn or outbuilding maybe...

Hope your photoshop/computer/memory issues have resolved.

[Mike Sibley]

We have another bat this morning - a pup, just like the last three. For the present, we've given it a tiny water supply and loosely laid a towel over it, rather than disturb it. Jenny's trying to contact the local Wildlife Haven. If I get a chance to take a photo with disturbing it, I will.

[Mike Sibley]

I love watching the little microbats flit through the evening twilight catching insects under the streetlights.

We have a pond just outside the studio with a bench at one end. It's our favourite place to sit in the evening - at dusk with a mug of coffee and watching the bats feed.

I wonder what is attracting them inside? Have you got a light on that is attracting insects?

I think the first night we had an adult visit. The other three have been pups - or just one pup revisiting. We've no way of telling that. It also coincides with us leaving the top of the kitchen window partially open so Inka can have some fresh air. We have sash widows, so imagine a four-inch gap at the top. They must be flying in that way - possibly attracted by insects seeking the light. But the pup last night was in our lounge when Jenny first entered, and it was in darkness.

We think - but I'm reluctant to investigate and disturb anything - that they might be living in our roof. Apparently bat mothers-to-be congregate in a joint roost to give birth. So, we might have multiple babies and mothers with us. I checked the barn roof last night and didn't find anything - other than our family of swallows nesting above the donkeys.

I took a photo of our current pup but computer problems and the resulting loss of Photoshop are a problem with posting it here. I'll see if I can process it in my video computer for you.

[Mike Sibley]

Managed to fire up CS6 in the video editing computer, so here's NORA the Pup:

BAT-2.jpg

To give you a scale, the Olympic sized swimming pool next to it is the top off a bottle of milk

She/He is about 1¼ inches long.

[LindasPencils]

Squeee!
he/she is so cute.
itty-bitty-baby-bat
What did the Wildlife Haven say?

[Mike Sibley]

By now - DAY 6 - we've had five pups visit us. The last one - last night - I placed on the bird table and it had disappeared ten minutes later.

Here's #4 - found on the kitchen floor:

BAT-2.jpg

All one and a quarter inches of it was chirping away to itself in my hand as I carried it out.

And this morning while we were sitting by the pond drinking coffee we at first thought we had a Damselfly visitor... but No. It was a HUGE Dragonfly, which began laying eggs in the weed and damp moss on the rocks. And that gave me ample opportunity to fetch the correct lens and take 100 photos:

DRAGONFLY-1.jpg

Never a dull moment.

And, in the meantime, I've just about finished flattening my main computer, so I have Photoshop back in action.