Calvin referred to them as "blood sucking bugs of the sky", but you'll have that with first graders who talk to their stuffed tiger.

So, on a Monday night I went up to jump in bed and discovered a bat circling my bedroom ... 15 minutes of vigirous exercise later, I'd nabbed it using a bathrobe and released it back into the night via the back door. This was the species known as 'Little Brown Bat' a.k.a. Myotis lucifugus It was about 3.5" long after capture which made me fell like a real wus, however in flight, it's more like a 10" windspan which seems a bit more imposing, esp as they tend to just strafe by suddenly in a darkened room.

I figured that this was an isolated incident, maybe it came down from the rafters in an addition to the house where I'm currently pulling out the old cardboard (no kidding) being used like sheetrock for the walls and ceiling. So I covered the doorway from this area (loosely) expecting that it would now no longer look like some bat-thruway. I figured, I could search through the rafters on the weekend and move them out and close up their entryway.

The following Thursday night, I had two more, or possibly one really dumb one ... it's probably racist of me, but all bats sort of look alike esp within a species. This time I was woken up at 1:15am by a really annoying squeeking sound; so I was grouchy at being awakened and impatient that this happened again so soon. So this time, I decided to knock it out of the air and then capture it on the floor. The sword in the corner of the bedroom (I need to find a place for it soon) was tempting, but seemed like going too far. So, I ended up grabing a stick and whacking it out of the air (first swing) and then putting it in the clear plastic bag that a comforter came in. Even though I whacked it pretty good and it lay dazed on the floor for a good 30 seconds before it started to trying to escape the bag, it flew off quite gracefully when I released it a few minutes later.

A few minutes after that Matt, my house guest, and I were talking a little bit before going back to bed and another bat flew into the room (or possibly the same really stupid bat). I picked up my stick and Matt grabbed a towel, then I decided to try to get a picture of it in mid-flight. This turned out to be not really a possibility because A) they like to fly in darkened rooms and B) the little suckers are fast! I actually do have a picture with a small blurry portion at the bottom that is a wing-tip. During my failed photography session, Matt had been trying to capture it with his towel without notable success. After about 15 minutes of this the bat evidently became tuckered out from playing with us and took five hanging above a window in the front room. After Matt's near success in nabbing the bat straight from it's roost, I again resorted to whacking it out of the air and Matt released it outside ... this one may have suffered some injury this time as it didn't fly away, but there was no trace of it in the morning either. I'm going to assume it got better a flew off because I like this theory better.

So, it looks like this evening will include a trip to the hardware store to pickup some chicken wire and a staplegun to try to bat-proof my house. Considering how small they guys are and the general location of all the sqeeking that woke me, I also have to consider the possibilty that they snuck in via a window gap where I have my window fan. Even though I rather like bats and prefer mammals in general, I really hope to keep them out of my house in the future.

Later, I thought maybe I should have tried to take in more of them ... I might have worked my way up to fighting crime with a cool car and a butler. An alternate career choice is a good thing in this economy, and chicks always go for guy with cools cars, but the really tempting thing would be to have my own bulter.

I figured out later that the issue was not my rafters, but that the window frame, when half open (for instance all summer while I was using a window fan), formed a nice little landing pad and ladder for the little guys to climb up and into the bedrooms.