Flying Florence

[den]

When I picked her up last night she was very dozey, probably due to concussion. She couldn't roll onto her stomach when I flipped her onto her back - a sign of head injury. This morning she was a little brighter, and tonight she was very active. I tried feeding her a meal worm.

She growled and exposed her teeth at me. I shoved in a worm. She clamped down on it and after a few seconds spat it out. She looked rather surprised and licked her lips. I put the worm at the end of her nose, and after licking it a few times she clamped down and munched like crazy. That worm lasted 5 seconds. She ate 13 meal worms, all the while making happy peeping noises. Right now she's back in the cloth tent. I'll feed her more later.

Florence is a broadnosed bat, like Donk was and about the same age, except Donk is now 12 months older and presumably much wiser.

Comments

[dabroots.livejournal.com]

Excellent. What does a bat growl sound like?

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a low squeak.

um...

No, that's about the best I can put it.

[klingrap.livejournal.com]

I spent one memorable evening tagging bats with a crew in Great Smoky Mountains NP, as well as a summer dodging them as a cave guide. They are such strange and adorable creatures. I wanted to pat one, but apparently you need to go through a whole battery of painful anti-rabies shots first.

[dabroots.livejournal.com]

Hey, an LJ friend wants to know (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=dabrooklyn&itemid=315871&nc=2) if you have ever been featured on the TV nature program, "Animal Planet". Have you?

[littlelamb.livejournal.com]

that's so cute! donk is so cute too! it's like cute overload

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

Wow, those are great photos, and congratulations on making a happy bat! (My only experience with bats is with the Big Brown Bats that get stuck in our hallway, and they make almost mechanical-sounding ratchety noises. Or possibly I'm just running into a rare group of robotic stealth-bats used to spy on apartment buildings....) Hope Florence gets better soon!

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

That would be their "We're big, bitey, angry beasts! GO AWAY!" sound. Or they really are robotic stealth-bats. [shrugs] I don't know.

Florence is getting better. She's eating more and moving around the tent, but she still prefers sleeping on the floor instead of hanging. That indicates to me that there's still a bit of a problem. Headaches, maybe.