Going batty #phenology

I suppose it makes sense to have international Bat Week the week before Halloween. Minnesota is home to seven species of bats, about half of whom hibernate in Winter while the other half migrates south. Here's a link to eleven facts about bats, including information on white-nose syndrome.

new bat house

Photo by J. Harrington

On Summer evenings, we often see bats flying and feeding over the wet spot in our back yard. For years we had a bat house in an oak tree next to our deck. Eventually, the branch holding the bat house died, fell down, and took the bat house with it. The Son-In-Law person built a new bat house (the old one had been "store boughten") and we installed it where it should be more visible to our furry, flying friends. One of these days I'll stroll up the hill and see if there are any signs under the house that bats have moved in, now that it's been up for a couple or three years.

"new" bat house after weathering

Photo by J. Harrington

This past Summer, a new (to Minnesota) species of bat was discovered in Arden Hills. That will make eight species but I don't know how many times the new species will have to be seen before it counts as a Minnesotan. Shortly after we moved into our house, we discovered a bat. It was flying around the bedroom ceiling and the downstairs family room. I decided that a firearm might do more harm than good and retrieved a large fishing net from the garage while the Better Half monitored the invader's location. After a few missed swipes, the bat was entangled in the net, transported outside and released. At least that's how I recall my brave response to the situation. I suspect the bat was considerably more scared than the humans.

How to Love Bats

By Judith Beveridge

Begin in a cave.

Listen to the floor boil with rodents, insects.

Weep for the pups that have fallen. Later,

you’ll fly the narrow passages of those bones,

                                                       but for now —

open your mouth, out will fly names

like Pipistrelle, Desmodus, Tadarida. Then,

listen for a frequency

lower than the seep of water, higher

than an ice planet hibernating

beyond a glacier of Time.

Visit op shops. Hide in their closets.

Breathe in the scales and dust

of clothes left hanging. To the underwear

and to the crumbled black silks — well,

give them your imagination

and plenty of line, also a night of gentle wind.

By now your fingers should have

touched petals open. You should have been dreaming

each night of anthers and of giving

to their furred beauty

your nectar-loving tongue. But also,

your tongue should have been practising the cold

of a slippery, frog-filled pond.

Go down on your elbows and knees.

You’ll need a spieliologist’s desire for rebirth

and a miner’s paranoia of gases —

but try to find within yourself

the scent of a bat-loving flower.

Read books on pogroms. Never trust an owl.

Its face is the biography of propaganda.

Never trust a hawk. See its solutions

in the fur and bones of regurgitated pellets.

And have you considered the smoke

yet from a moving train? You can start

half an hour before sunset,

but make sure the journey is long, uninterrupted

and that you never discover

the faces of those Trans-Siberian exiles.

Spend time in the folds of curtains.

Seek out boarding-school cloakrooms.

Practise the gymnastics of web umbrellas.

                                             Are you

floating yet, thought-light,

without a keel on your breastbone?

Then, meditate on your bones as piccolos,

on mastering the thermals

beyond the tremolo; reverberations

beyond the lexical.

                                           Become adept

at describing the spectacles of the echo —

but don’t watch dark clouds

passing across the moon. This may lead you

to fetishes and cults that worship false gods

by lapping up bowls of blood from a tomb.

Practise echo-locating aerodromes,

stamens. Send out rippling octaves

into the fossils of dank caves —

then edit these soundtracks

with a metronome of dripping rocks, heartbeats

and with a continuous, high-scaled wondering

about the evolution of your own mind.

But look, I must tell you — these instructions

are no manual. Months of practice

may still only win you appreciation

of the acoustical moth,

hatred of the hawk and owl. You may need

to observe further the floating black host

through the hills.

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