Evicting the Local Wildlife
Apr. 2nd, 2005 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
restomanToday we were working at moving accumulated 'stuff' out of my workshop to get the place ready to be sold. Mark picked up a box of ceramic tiles that was sitting in a corner, and dislodged this little guy from his hiding place behind the box:
Apparently he was hibernating in the house all winter. He was very groggy and disoriented, with sawdust on his face. He did not seem to be injured. I picked him up in an old cap and carefully put him outside on the porch. After a few minutes he regained his composure and flew away.
Apparently he was hibernating in the house all winter. He was very groggy and disoriented, with sawdust on his face. He did not seem to be injured. I picked him up in an old cap and carefully put him outside on the porch. After a few minutes he regained his composure and flew away.
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Date: 2005-04-03 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 05:19 am (UTC)I have handled at least 40 of them over the years ...they like old houses too!
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Date: 2005-04-03 05:57 am (UTC)If I get another one in my house, I am calling you!
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Date: 2005-04-03 06:23 am (UTC)OK, call me next time one gets in your house!
They can be very intimidating when a bunch of them are flying around you!
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Date: 2005-04-03 07:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 02:19 pm (UTC)I'm just strange!
Poor little groggy thing.
Date: 2005-04-03 05:36 am (UTC)They remind me of moths; I think of them as being fragile, although they're really not. I've thought several times about making/buying a bat house and installing it, only I've read several times that it's very hit or miss whether they'll notice it, let alone move in.
Great pictures.
M.
Re: Poor little groggy thing.
Date: 2005-04-03 06:11 am (UTC)A few years ago, a customer of mine, who owned an old house near a lake, had a large colony of bats living in the attic. He ordered 2 bat houses through the internet. I installed them on a tall post in the yard, but the bats refused to use them. I even captured 8 of them with gloved hands and climbed up a ladder to carefully place them in the bat house. They didn't like it and were gone the next day!
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Date: 2005-04-03 05:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 06:16 am (UTC)A Louisville Slugger just doesn't work as well for ridding the yard of mosquitos! ;-)
Build him a belfry!
Date: 2005-04-03 08:18 am (UTC)I've been helping Bill with his moving all week. He has a lot of stuff accumulated over 24 years in one place. One of the things he WON'T miss are the hoards of flies and ladybugs that seem to have taken over the old farmhouse.
We also found his local leopard frog swimming in his dog's outside waterbowl. I think he must have been wintering next to the foundation. April 2 is a bit early for frogs to be out, I think!?!
Re: Build him a belfry!
Date: 2005-04-03 02:55 pm (UTC)Re: Build him a belfry!
Date: 2005-04-03 10:10 pm (UTC)Hmm.. Can a Moose VaFrog?
Re: Build him a belfry!
Date: 2005-04-03 11:40 pm (UTC)I don't know what it is about old farmhouses that make them so attractive to ladybugs and cluster flies!
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Date: 2005-04-03 02:54 pm (UTC)A) I LOVE bats they're wonderful creatures.
B) we all know Guano is great fertilizer, but here's my thunk...
Bat's tend to go while they're hanging upside down...
How do they not poop on their face???
C) the biggest bat I saw was the flying fox in the Toronto Zoo. Freaking amazing creatures....
D) there is NOTHING more amazing then watching a silent bat come out of nowhere and eat a giant moth that's been bothering you while you're outside cleaning up ice cream on the tables. :)
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Date: 2005-04-04 03:16 am (UTC)Now I will be wondering how bats can poop upside down!!! I guess I will just have to watch one carefully sometime! I have 2 five-gallon buckets of guano that I swept up from the attic of a customer's house. I haven't figured out how best to use it yet.
I've never seen a flying fox bat, but I did see a large Silver bat once when I was demolishing an old chimney on a camp in the Adirondacks.
I am always amazed by the way they can fly with such precision that they can catch tiny insects. Yup, bats are awesome creatures! :-)
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Date: 2005-04-04 04:14 am (UTC)I wouldn't recommend trying it yourself with gravity boots and metamucil :)
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Date: 2005-04-03 09:01 pm (UTC)I've never had one in my own house, but had a few encounters with them. We stayed at Mallacoota in Victoria which is on a lake near the sea. The place we stayed were mud-brick units (hand made by the guy who owned the place). It was an eco-friendly type of place. We were making up our bed on our first night there and noticed a moth flying around the bedroom. Well, we thought it was a moth. Turned out to be a tiny bat! We coaxed him out by turning on the outside lights. I've never seen a bat so tiny! It was amazing.
The botanical gardens in Melbourne have a massive bat colony (flying foxes) and there have been many moves to try to get the bats to move (to no avail I believe). See: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1029_021029_FlyingFox.html
I don't think I'd be composed enough to handle one though! It was scary enough walking under them in the botanical gardens - all the warning signs about not touching them etc!
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Date: 2005-04-05 01:06 am (UTC)I am glad that the bat was at my workshop, and not in my house! They make a rather smelly mess where ever they live. I haven't cleared out the attic of the workshop yet. I suppose I might find more of them there.
Any time that I need to handle a bat, I wear heavy gloves or use some sort of protection so I won't get bitten. The last thing I would want would be to spend eternity living as a vampire!!! LOL
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Date: 2005-04-04 05:22 pm (UTC)You should see the Mexican bats that come to Austin every year. They live under the main bridge downtown and fly out by the thousands every evening at sundown on a feeding frenzy. It's one of our main tourist attractions. The underside of the bridge was even especially constructed to accommodate them.
And you're not weird - you're just restoman.
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Date: 2005-04-05 01:22 am (UTC)LOL! Thanks Eddie!!
I don't know whether the bat was a male or female, even though I refer to it as a male. I have no idea how to tell the sexes apart, and I'm not sure that I would want to examine one closely enough to find out!!
He did complain about being woken up, and complained even more about being picked up, but I had his best interests in mind.
If I ever get to Austin, I want to watch those bats at sundown!!!