A Visitor to the VC

Thursday, August 11, 2011
I enjoy watching the visitors at the Visitor Center.   Here is a set of grandparents trying on the 1800's period clothes with a grandson---



Dress up is fun at any age!

But some of our visitors do not come in through the door.   We have several of these during the summer---



He's not very good at hiding--a brown bat on a white wall really shows up!   He's small--maybe 3-4 inches long.



There is "bat catching gear" at the VC.  A net on a very long pole, and leather gloves.   Bats are protected species--we catch them and release them outside.  Did you know that bats cannot fly when they are on the ground?  They need to "drop" from a height to fly.  This one was only about knee height on the wall, I just used the gloves to pick him off the wall and hung him on an oak tree outside.   These bats eat insects--so I hope he's busy eating mosquitos at night.   





3 comments:

Nancy said...

I don't know if I could handle the bat even with gloves, but I suppose you have done it so many times that it doesn't bother you.

Brenda said...

I LOVE BATS!!!!!

I used to get so annoyed at my cat, she would hurt them... okay, kill them, but for her I guess it was a challange.... It just hurt my heart when I would see her 'prize' - I love bats!!!
And I am making a bat house for my house!!! I don't know where to hang it, or how I will hang it, but I am going to have one or two or heck, lets for for 5!! Bat houses!!!

Your little guy, trying to 'hide' in plain sight was just to cute!!! Thank-You for treating him so well!!!

My sis had mice in her attic - or so she thought!! When someone came to help her out, that is when she found out the noise she heard at night, were bats in the attic!!!! Now, I don't know if i would like that!! But it still makes me laugh! She does not like bats!! So they are gone now!!!

Susan said...

I love bats! I always did a wonderful bat unit in October with my second graders. One year, I took sixth graders up to tag bats, and that was super, too. With all this furor about the "vampire bat invasion" from South America, there's probably going to be a lot of trouble for little guys like this one. I'm amazed at the statistics on how many insects they eat. We would truly be inundated if there were no bats.