The Invasion Of The Bat

Last night when I got home from visiting a friend, Jake the dog was besides himself jumping up and down wanting some food. So I went straight to the kitchen to get his food. I was just preparing his dinner when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a real live black bat flying about in the far end of the kitchen!

Well, I've never seen a real bat before in my life. I didn't exactly freak out, but I think I was in a bit of a shock as to how on earth a bat could've gone into the house. Fortunately, some friends were not too far away, so I quickly went out again and got them and they managed to catch the bat for me and take it out of the house.

What a relief. Jake finally got his dinner and after that I was so tired, I went straight to bed. I was trying to find a picture of a bat on the internet and the one above is the closest one that I could find that looks like the one that got in the house yesterday.

I never knew before today that bats come in different colours. I thought they were all black, but apparantly some are brown and there are some that are grey too. In Nova Scotia apparantly there are 7 different species of bats, 3 of which are more common. Some are little and some are big. Some even have long ears!

Did you know that: 'Bats are protected under the BC Provincial Wildlife Act and special permits must be obtained to kill them. The chance of being "attacked" by a rabid bat is extremely rare in B.C. As a precaution avoid handling bats altogether, but should it be necessary, thick leather gloves should be worn to touch live bats and disposable plastic ones to deal with dead bats. ' ?

Well, we don't live in British Columbia, but we didn't kill the bat. However, we didn't use leather gloves either. We just used an empty yogurt pot to capture it and then released it once we were outside the house.

Also apparantly, 'Female bats give birth to only one or two young annually and roost in small or large numbers. Males may live singly or in small groups but scientists are still unsure of the whereabouts of most males in summer.'

This bat was on his own, so maybe he was a male. I guess some male bats might try and sneak into people's houses in the summer, hmmph! Well, I hope none of them try to come in here again. Bats are definitely NOT WELCOME in this house! There's enough animals here.