A little visitor

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I had another unexpected visitor the other day – a much smaller one this time. I got up in the morning just as it was getting light, and opened the bedroom window. Then I went into the kitchen (which is on the same level) to make myself a drink, and the next thing I knew something was fluttering rapidly round the room! It was a bat – a brown long-eared bat to be precise – which was presumably just getting itself a bite of supper before going home to bed when it flew in through the window. I opened the door for it to go out but it didn’t – just flew round and round and occasionally darted into the corners. Maybe it was disorientated by the increasing light and just wanted to find the darker places. Anyway eventually it settled on the smoke detector, and after a bit of thought I decided to try and catch it the same way I would if it was an insect. I got a plastic tub and a sheet of stiff paper, climbed on a chair, put the tub over it and slid the paper along the ceiling, and it obediently dropped into the tub. I carried it outside but it just lay in the tub and didn’t fly away. I thought maybe it couldn’t take off from the smooth surface so I carefully tilted the tub so it would slide to the edge and then it swooped away and off into the nearby trees. So that was a first – never seen one of these before – at least not close enough to know what type of bat it was. Sorry the photo isn’t very good, the light levels were too low to get a decent picture. All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2024.