Bertie the Bat

I spent all day with my tired worn out little insectivorous bat in my pocket and I kept looking in on him and he seemed quite comfortable so at 5.30pm I decided it was dark enough for him to fly but when I took him out of my pocket he looked as tired and worn out as I when I put him in, I was feeling concerned as he has spent all day recovering and didn’t look any better. I suspected that he had just had too much battering whilst trapped on the screens, probably chilled too much. I took him back to my office and put him inside a small box on some leather gloves and the first thing he did was make a very strange arching manoeuvre and I though he was dieing in my hands as I was moving him, he moved a little and then urinated on my hands but making sure he missed himself, I think it was a him , he seemed to have a small penis, but bats are strangely put together.

He had one tiny hole in his wing but he seemed OK to fly

So then after I put him in the box I decided to try and feed him just for curiosity’s sake as I had never done it before but I had seen it done on TV. I caught a small flying insect inside my office, it was tiny like a small flying ant and I held it by the wings and held it under bertie the bat’s nose and he snatched it out of my fingers, so that was it, I went outside and while trying to catch more things for him to eat I bumped into the site manager and said hello and invited him to watch the feeding of the bat, now having wild animals here on site is a sackable offence and I told him the story and he was quite impressed, I fed it a larger waspy type thing and again he snatched it up and gobbled it down crunching on the hard bits, all very funny from such a tiny thing. I closed the lid and I went for dinner, when I got back about an hour later I opened the box and I was mortified the poor thing looked dead, absolutely no movement at all, I poked its ear and nothing it was stiff, I poked its head harder and this time it spun around and squeaked some very irritated sonar noises at me from a very agitated looking head, it was completely asleep and I had woken it up poor thing, it had had a bad day totally, I went and caught a lager moth and offered it this and again it took relish in making the crunching noises again and ate everything, I had to ring the bank at that time and so I put the lid back on and whilst I was in mid conversation about a credit card application I let out a howl as the bat was climbing out of the tiny gap in the end of the box and I had to poke it back down with my fingers probably to the amusement of the women at the other end of the line as I was giving her a blow by blow description of what I was doing, she probably didn’t believe me anyway. How many people do you know who have bats on the table and have been feeding them moths. Nor me also. So I realised that it was time for bertie to be on his way, I took him outside and it was totally dark by now and I just opened my hands and he jumped of my and in a sky dive type affair and flapped his way round and round the area where we were as I think he was trying to find out where he was, like, “ I remember there being a large machine here this morning but all I can see are these two stupid looking tall creatures with their mouths open”. He was probably right, one of the soldiers was watching me as I released the bat. He probably wanted to scream “witch ,witch” or womething. So there I was as proud as a new daddy watching my baby take to the wing and only 12 hours in my company. So there you go rearing a bat isn’t that hard , they are pretty tame and he settled down inside 2 minutes to spend all day in my sweaty pocket, he loved it and took food straight from my fingers, I am still amazed myself so don’t think I had done it before. Good job it was a small one as one of the bats I have rescued before was about 4 inches long and a wing span of 12 inches, now that would have been a different matter. So life now goes on and I am still collecting my butterflies and moths and strange insects and the weather si still very nice and warm, just trying not to think about the rainy season when I come here next rotation in January.