Something Special Tonight

[19&41]

I walk round the building here at work periodically and tonight I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned around and found 4 or 5 little bats chasing their bugs doing aerobatics. They were on their way from the old houses nearby to the transit station here to do their hunting. It's the first time this year I've seen them. They are a pleasure to watch.

[TC Chris]

They are amazing creatures, aren't they? Imagine if we had to find our food using echoes. At my Mom's cottage where I am right now, I have a Purple Martin house up along the waterfront. The Martins are avid consumers of bugs too. And they like humans because we supply their housing. Native Americans began it with hanging gourds.

Chris Campbell

[19&41]

The community around the station has been regentrified over the last 20 years and the old homes have had to have a lot of clean up from the bird and bat populations living in their attics. They have been setting up sheds for the bats and pole houses for the swallows and martins.

[Firedome]

Our youngest son built a bat house for our camp and we put it on the back wall here in VT. It faces a large woods and we have plenty of mosquitoes when we have a moist summer, it's been pretty dry this year though. We see the bats rarely, mainly if we sit outside later in the evening, but we know they're there and are using the house since we see the guano they sometimes leave on the back wall below the house as they leave or return from their bug hunting sorties. Skunks, red foxes & kits, deer, and a rare bear, bobcat or moose also have been seen hanging around the yards in our neighborhood at times as well. It's a real Wild America here.

[TC Chris]

My small-city backyard has hosted coons, possums, rabbits, chipmunks, skunks, and porcupines. And gray squirrels. Likely some predators in the dark, because the chipmunks are less common and the rabbits are down a bit too. One night Mr. Skunk and I were on coinciding courses. I turned and ran so abruptly that I fell to the ground. We were equally surprised.

Chris Campbell

[19&41]

If it's the right time of evening and you stay out awhile, the bats are likely to come as your breath attracts the mosquitoes and in turn, the bats. Carbon dioxide is what attracts them.