Bats

[redbird]

A small flock of bats is flying over the school and convent/yoga center on Isham Street at dusk. I've seen them two nights in a row, when I came home at about the same time.

Yesterday I was walking up Isham, between Cooper and Seaman, when I heard a few high-pitched calls and saw dark wings circling overhead. I wasn't sure at first whether they were bats or swallows; a passer-by confirmed them as bats. I sat on the bench and watched them dart away from the school roof, and back toward it, for a few minutes, until they stopped returning. I stopped at Seaman and Isham to see if I could spot anything, and didn't, but someone else asked what I was looking for. When I told him, he expressed surprise--but I've seen bats overhead in Yonkers, while visiting supergee, nellorat, and womzilla, and cattitude and I saw one in a tree in Inwood Hill Park, during the day, a few years ago.

Tonight I was walking up Seaman from 207th when I saw them. I'd guess at least 20, maybe more: dark against the blue evening sky, very fast, they flew out over the street to above the trees of Isham and Inwood Parks, then back, over and over. Half a dozen flew off to the north; I saw one or two go south or west, and the rest disappeared from view after a bit. My guess is that those, and most or all of the flock last night, went east or south, where I couldn't see behind buildings, because I wouldn't expect a flock of bats to settle in to roost as it was getting dark.

Comments

[callunav.livejournal.com]

This is very cool. I'm fascinated by bats.

Have you read Randall Jarrell's The Bat Poet?

Once, when walking through the Mount Auburn Cemetery arboritum, I and a few friends paused by a small pond and noticed a brown bat flying above it, zipping back and forth, catching bugs.

It was about 2:00 in the afternoon, on a sunny spring day.

We watched for some time. Was it rabid, we wondered? But it was eating, as far as we could tell, and otherwise behaving quie normally. Had it just been caught out late? No, because it didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest. We must have sat and watched that bat being normally bat-like for a good 20 minutes before moving on. There was nothing odd about it at all except everything.

Mount Auburn Cemetery has, as you may know, bird-spotting check-sheets you can fill out, to let them know when you saw two red-tailed hawks and one broad-tailed hawk from the tower, or whatever. They list all sorts of birds, some common, some rare. They also have a spot for 'other.' After some thought, we ticked off 'other' and filled in, "Small brown diurnal bat."

But, Redbird, am I mixing people up or were you talking about getting your hearing checked? You say you heard the bats, is why I ask.

[redbird]

No, you are not confusing people. I'm thinking of getting my hearing checked because I miss bits of conversation, and don't hear birds as well as I used. I suspect that I have hearing loss in a different piece of the spectrum than the bats were calling in. (I'm fairly sure it was normal mammalian talking to each other, not sonar.)

[ellarien]

That's very neat. I think I've spotted bats here in Tucson a couple of times, flitting over the road when the summer dusk is already too deep to be sure of them. If that's what they were, I suspect they live under a nearby bridge.