Nature Done Wright

    In a former life, this blog was called "Birds, Bats and Beyond," and though the name has changed, my interest in bats has not.
    To see the world’s shortest bat video, click above.
    In case you missed it, the video includes a slo-mo replay.
     I filmed it last year, but it pretty much shows what my bat counting experience was like Tuesday night, times nearly 40.
   
   Click "Continue reading… " directly below for more.

      I once again did a bat count for New Jersey’s excellent Endangered and Non-game Species Program.
     It entailed sitting on a lawn chair in my driveway for 45 minutes, looking at my neighbor’s house to see how many bats I could see fly out of the eaves.
   Given that a weird bat disease was hitting colonies in New England earlier this year, I was curious to see how the bats nearby were doing.
   But the best part of the bat count was not the bats….The best part was sitting outside at dusk in silence for a prolonged period, with no distractions, and paying attention — to the arrival of the fireflies, then the call of the Canada geese (I didn’t say it was all good), then the emergence of the bats, one by one by one.
   Over a 15-minute span, I counted 39 bats fly out from under my neighbor’s eaves. They seemed to fall from the between the eaves, drop for a foot or so, then fly away in a swoop.
  Last summer, I put up two bat boxes on my house, but I did not see any bats leave Tuesday night. I think the bats like living on a house itself, and not in a wooden structure, because the temperatures are more consistent. Or maybe the bats just like my neighbor’s house better.
   In any event, I am jealous. Bat numbers have been declining, and I would like to do my part.
  If you know a place near you where bats live and would like to participate in the survey, click here.