Critters again

We visited this weekend, and I think it was mostly because that we felt we were owed at least a night out there, it had been too long. This summer was busy with life and honestly the kids aren't super interested in hanging at the beach with their parents these days. But the real poker in the fire for making the trip was our security camera kept pinging us about movement. (No it was not Robbie- I'm sad to log a report that Robbie no longer visits out cottage. We hope that he has simply moved out doors for the summer months and got tired of spending the energy dealing with us, what a funny house guest.) After a few months of nothing from our camera, we finally had action again. We had moved the camera to the floor with a long sightline, hoping to catch on video and see that Robbie still was visiting. But it pinged at night and most of the time there was nothing, until there was something... it was flittering and fast we have a bat!

So off we went Saturday afternoon, wondering if we would be able to find our bat, followed by the query of would we be able to catch it and get it outside? We hope it had just come in unnoticed through an open door and not found an easy access somewhere else. Bats are abundant in the airspace at Hytte, flying all around us in the evenings. They are fun to watch darting through the night with such agility. Not too long ago one grazed my nose while I stood outside on the porch in the middle of the night waiting for the dog to pee, startling me so I rushed to the safety of the indoors the wait for the dog to finish up.

I wonder now if the bat was startled too and rushed inside with me.

After 20 minutes of looking in every space that a bat could fly up into to roost and hide and pulling back curtains anticipating it to fly out, Gage found the little darling poking its head out of a wall mounted heater, barley shin high.

The bat's head was sticking out and the body tucked safe inside (or stuck?). Gage quickly removed the fixed-louvered heater grate from the heater and placed it outside on the table, pried the vent grates apart to release the bat's head and waited for it to fly off. It didn't fly off, not then and not that night. The next morning Gage tried to give it water and searched our cottage for spiders to feed the poor bat, convinced it was starving and weak, but there was not a spider to be found. The bat must have eaten them all, and thinking about how many spiders we vacuum up each time we visit, that bat was very well fed.

It eventually disappeared. Whether it flew off, or simply crawled to a hiding place near the table to recover from the ordeal it had been put through, we didn't see it again.