M

[den]

The lady on the phone was telling me a depressinly common story. We brought in some firewod, and when we split open a log there were two bats inside," she said. "I think one has a broken wing."

Wellington is 40km east of town and if it wasn't for the lack of size, harbour, airport, and places of interest it would be exactly like Wellington NZ, only less interesting. I found the house, knocked on the door and was greeted by a happy kelpie barking at me. My doorbell sounds exactly the same, I thought. The lady asked if I was there for the bats, and handed me an old gardening glove. Looking at me from the wrist was a freetailed bat, and I could see immediately her left wing was broken. There was no sign of the other, but the little finger was full of something small and growly.

"Do you want this glove?" I asked. The lady said no so I stuffed it into my bat bag and tied the end.

By the time I arrived back in Dubbo the freetail had left the glove and was climbing around the bag. The little finger was still growly so I put it in a tent and hoped th eoccupant would climb out while I euthanased the injured bat. After doing The Deed I checked the tent, but it still only contained a glove that growled at me. Time for the trusty Swiss Army Knife.

Half an hour later I was holding a peeved little forest bat. Now there's a thing. You don't get different species roosting together. I can only guess that the bats must have come out of different logs, and since they were both female I have to wonder what happened to the rest of their maternity colonies.

M iweighed 4 grams and was very thin. She is young, probably born last year, and I don't think she did enough pre-winter hunting. She would certainly die if she was still in the wild. Last night and tonight she ate the guts of 6 meal worms, and is looking a lot fatter already. I hope she'll start eating whole worms soon.

Comments

[odiedragon.livejournal.com]

Go Team Batty!!!!

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

Y'know, you could just call her M, like James Bond's boss. Or, you could save that name for another year. :)

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

That is not a bad idea! She is grumpy enough to be Judy Dench's M.

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but then you need to start numbering the male bats with Double Oh numbers!

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

bitey bats give me double OW numbers.

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

I suppose so! :)

How big is a 4 gram bat...?
I mean, wingspan wise and stuff?

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Each wing is a shade over 83mm from shoulder to tip, so her total wingspan is 176mm from tip to tip (inc. 10mm between the shoulders). From nose to base of tail she is 35mm, and her tail is another 27mm.

That's how big a 4 gram bat is. The really big little forest bats weigh almost 7 grams

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

WOW! That's HUGE!

Now, I have to wonder how much a bumble bee weighs?

Nitpicky! Bats don't weigh in grams ;)
They Mass in grams. They Weigh in Newtons. ;)

(Sorry, physics geeky guy here. I usually forget the right verb myself. ;) )

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

Ah! According to google, a Bumble bee weighs half a gram or so.

[pipibluestockin]

*growl*

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

Go, little forest bat! You can do it!

Well, she's got the best care a sad bat can hope for, so it's all good.

Different species roosting apart

[ursuscal.livejournal.com]

That's interesting that different species don't usually roost together. At the Folsom Power Plant, we have two species that co-exist (side-by-side, but not necessarily intermixed). There are Mexican fruit bats, and one other local, smaller species (I haven't found out what kind). It could be that they only coexist because of a lack of other habitat. We were worried about their guano falling on the two walkways, but they're protected due to it being a State Park, so they passively moved them by putting blow-foam insulation in the crevices between the walls and the ceiling. But the little buggers simply dug the stuff out and moved back in. }:xD

Re: Different species roosting apart

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Generally they don't, but I once found a maternity colony of southern freetails that also contained a male broadnosed bat. Broadnoses are know to be occasional carnivores, so I can't help feeling he was in there for more than the warmth.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

Woo!

[tatterdemalion.livejournal.com]

woohoo

Go M..

you can do it

you got the best batbloke in the business.. THE BEST

[weyrdbird.livejournal.com]

She's lucky she found you:), soon she'll bet fat and sassy and ready for a long winters nap!:)