I'll See Myself Out

 

I’m limp with relief, giddy with joy. I’ve waited to write this post until Something Else happened. I knew something else was about to happen. I made this video the night of May 27. I’ve been so busy, stretched so thin, that I’ve released my four female bats without blogging about it. I’ve done a LOT of interesting things lately without blogging about them. The four female bats were ready for the big time the first week of May, and I was only too happy to release them, knowing that if I didn’t get them out, they might drop pups on me. Then I’d be saddled with caring for mother and baby until the pups were ready to fly…arrggh. Nope. Way beyond my expertise. The two males, for whatever reason, didn’t take to the wing like the females did, and I held them back for more flight practice. 

 When I made this video, I knew it would be Carmelo’s and my last night together. I wanted a little memento of just how special he is. He’s so perfect, so aware, so beautiful. And so very gentle. Of all six bats I had this winter, Carmelo was the gentlest. He never so much as cussed at me. I can’t say the same for Lustofin, Laura, Poppy, or Fuchsia. Even my little darling Jolie Blonde turned cussy as spring neared. Who could blame her? She was likely pregnant, and pregnant people don’t willingly put up with fools.

 And I am a fool. I’ve got this nice hi-tech tent, and I decided that Carmelo and Lustofin, who were lagging far behind the females, would fly better and faster if I just set them free in it and let them fly around unsupervised each night. It was great, and it worked for Carmelo. Within just a few nights, Carmelo got sharper and sharper, and he flew better each night I came in to exercise them. Lustofin isn’t flying well, and that’s another story—he’s not ready yet. He’s on two antibiotics now, and is about to go on an antiparasitic. More on that later… But Carmelo! You can see and hear the beauty of his flight in this video. I watched him do four rounds of the tent, with an expert about-face in mid-air, and a perfect drop into his little hamper, and I knew he was ready. Ready to go home. Ready to go free. Tomorrow night, May 28, my mom’s 103rd birth anniversary, Carmelo would be released at last! I’d been caring for him since New Year’s Eve, when he was found hanging in a doorway inside Monkey’s Uncle Tattoo Parlor in Harmar Village, Marietta. 

 I came out this morning, May 28, to check and see where Carmelo and Lustofin spent the night. They’ve always willingly returned to their hamper, to sleep in the folded fleece curtains hanging there. Just like in the video--it was so cute!  I lifted the fleece, and there was Lustofin. But where was Carmelo? For the next two hours, I searched that tent, high and low. I came back with a broom and dustpan. Took everything out of it, unfurled every single piece of nylon and window covering; turned my little camp table over, turned the chair over, looked in every pocket and cranny. NOTHING. Carmelo had left the building. But HOW? It was zipped up tight; I always neurotically checked the zippers twice when I left them in the evening after feeding. I found the hole. It was a little port made to admit an extension cord. An inch across, plenty for a clever bat. How he found it I have no idea--the nylon all around it is slick and I'd never seen either bat try to crawl on it or cling to it. But it's the only hole in the tent.

And that clever little bat had found the ONE portal in the entire 14 x 10’ tent, and seen himself out. And out was into my four-car garage, which was closed up tight for the night. Ohh boy. I knew the chances of finding a 3” long brown bat in that enormous garage were slim to none. I told myself that if he could find a 1” portal in a big nylon tent, he could certainly find a hole in a four-car garage to let himself out. But. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he was still in the garage, having fallen into a box, an old stovepipe baffle, a slick-sided flowerpot. Maybe he was trapped somewhere. Arrrgh. My mind went all kinds of places. I tried to keep it from going to pieces. I kept reminding myself what a clever bat my Carmelo was. 

And I resolved to go out to the garage at the Witching Hour of 9:15, when it’s finally dark, to see if he was flying around in there. I kept myself busy all day long, potting and moving plants, planting the tomatoes, emptying the greenhouse, watering, watering, watering. I can’t believe how many plants I have to deal with, but I got them all out of the plastic hut. Just in time too…it’s stifling hot in there now! I laid my two Creole Lady hibiscii on their sidse, and sprayed the bejesus out of them, washing away a living crawling felt of green aphids. I repotted the big one, marveling that she’s only two years old and taller than I am. 

 I fed a batch of orphaned baby birds every hour on the hour (another story there, too). Finally it was dusk, finally I could go out to the garage. I opened the small garage door and the first thing I heard was the flicker of leathern wings. CARMELO!! He circled and did figure eights in the light of my headlamp. He dove down and circled twice around my head! Then he flew up high into the rafters and tucked himself behind a beam. Just to be granted this sight of him flying like a star pilot; to know he was alive and well and ready to go; to be able to say hello again and goodbye, was such an enormous gift. I was overwhelmed with joy. I hurried over and opened the garage door on one end, then opened the two garage doors on the other end of the building. I flung the people door wide. I grabbed a chair and sat for almost an hour, listening, hoping to hear him fly down and out. I couldn’t hear anything. Perhaps he was resting. Perhaps he’d flown out as the doors were grinding open. I would never know. No matter.

 I didn’t need to see him go. Any bat who could find a 1” flap-covered cord hole halfway up the side of a slick nylon tent could find three huge garage door openings. Carmelo would be free tonight, free to course the meadows for moths, to dart through the blinking lightning bugs. To fly back to Marietta, if he wanted, to the brick streets he came from. He could do whatever he wanted, and this was the perfect moment I’d been working for since December 31. I was so glad that moment was granted to me. As for Carmelo, he knew when he was ready, and he made it easy for me. Sort of, if you don't count a few hours searching and maybe 10 hours worrying and that perfect hour sitting in the dark garage with the moonlight coming in and the crickets tuning up, and the lightning bugs playing all around in the soft almost-summer air.

Red Bat Release: To the MOON, Alice!

Cards and letters keep rolling in. I do appreciate the outpouring, and the beautiful sentiments that let me know how much Chet Baker meant to those of you who have written. I'm saving them. I won't lie: it's hard for me to read them, when I spend much of each day trying so damn hard to forget and get on with things. Lots of times I have to refrain from opening the mail until I'm in the right frame of mind, feeling bulletproof. My speaking schedule is packed, and while I don't much feel like being in public, the travel has been a blessing.  I'm trying to get back to my running routes, but I usually end up in a puddle of tears as I remember him so vividly, running in front of me, nosing at that log, jumping that ditch, eyeing those cattle. I remember all the places where he used to cross the road so he could keep an eye on oncoming cars. He was so smart about cars. I even remember the spots where he liked to stop for a poop. With all that's going on right now, running helps keep me grounded, centered and sane, but there's a fresh dart to the heart every time I go out. Maybe I need to find some new routes, ones that aren't haunted by sweet apparitions.

They say the Universe sends us what we need. When the timing's right, it's magic. I couldn't have received a better gift on the Very Bad Day of September 1 than a red bat in need of love, comfort and wasp larvae. On this, our third installment, the bat is being fed for the last time, in preparation for release.

This isn't a great photo, as it was taken in very low light, but look at the gorgeous lines of this little animal as she investigates the padded Critter Keeper that would be her home for three days and two nights. I purposely keep short-term rehab bats in small plastic containers with toweling or nonskid drawer liner as padding, to keep them from breaking their delicate finger bones should they beat their wings against the sides. This bat was a model guest. Every time I checked on her, day or night, she was either sleeping or preening--she wasted no time or energy that I saw, trying to find a way out.

I just love the long slender forearm, the hand part of the wing being folded along it, the jet-black webbing crinkled up between hand and forearm. Her hind leg is extended, joined by a membrane to the tail and the other hind leg. Her head is up, and she's taking in information with eyes and nose. Once you get used to bat architecture you can begin to appreciate what a beauty she is.

She looks deceptively big and blimpy here. Most of what you're seeing is fur and membrane. Her little body is slender, and if you squint you can see her sides--quite vole-like, with a little waist, even--and the outline of her tail. The big furry areas along her sides are her coat--the heavily furred patagium, or wing membrane, that, along with the furry tail membrane, allows this little marvel of adaptation to wrap herself up and survive midwinter temperatures, hanging by one foot from a twig in the woods, pretending to be a dead leaf. 

Red bats are migratory, and you'll see them flying through Halloween and even into winter. I've seen them hunting insects on warm late January days. A good number, surprisingly, may stay around to winter here in southeast Ohio. But most are thought to head south. An excellent article at the Bat Conservation International website explains red bat hibernation strategy. A study of 13 male red bats wintering in southern Missouri (hardly subtropical!) showed that when temperatures dropped below freezing, the bats did, too--from tree branch roosts to the leaf litter below! 

Radiotelemetry showed that red bats used leaf litter on exposed south-facing slopes for roosting, and that they left the litter when temperatures became mild, to forage at night for moths. They went deep into torpor when temperatures were cold, buried or sometimes completely exposed in the leaf litter. Their vivid red-brown coloration makes more sense when you think of them hibernating beneath an oak in the litter.

The realization that red bats might hibernate in leaf litter was born when bats in many parts of temperate North America were observed flying up from the forest floor during prescribed winter forest burns. This led to the radiotelemetry study by Brad Mormann and Miranda Milam from which I've excerpted these notes. 

 I'm pretty sure you weren't hibernating, lying there on your back on a warm drizzly evening, Missy. I don't know what you were up to, but it wasn't good.

I'll never tell. Thank you for the room and board. I'm feeling much, much better now.

 Let's take a look at some more videos! In this one, you can see more of her body as she relaxes in my glove. I'm barely holding her, as she's so absorbed in her feeding that escape is far from her mind. 

I love this one, for the way she tackles a nearly mature paper wasp pupa. WOW. 

This movie gives you some excellent Tiny Pink Tongue action. She's fed, watered and ready to fly.

 To the MOON, Alice!!

  


There were three people documenting this momentous event with iPhones: Shila, Bill, and Liam. All the video here is Liam's, except for this slo-mo Bill took. It's really cool because if you can make it out in the dim light, you can see Alice turning on her sonar just before she takes off. She opens her lips and flares them as she sends out sonar signals. And then she works her wings free and heads for the moon.

I can always tell when a bat is plotting escape from my glove when it lifts its head, opens its mouth and turns its head rapidly side to side. It's scanning its environment with sonar. I may not be able to hear its ultrasonic sonar clicks, but I can see it emitting them.

This is how it feels to release a strong, healthy red bat who might otherwise have died.

The night was one bat more beautiful, and that's way more beautiful than it was before.

Little Bat, Lost

Friday, September 1, was an awful day. I'd pushed through August 30 and 31 thinking, oh, this isn't so bad, I'm relieved, actually. I've got work to do. I got up that day and gathered up all the trappings of a dog's life: the two nice clean beds,  the funky bed, the food, the treats...couldn't touch the collars and leashes yet, so I left them in the drawers. I wanted to get all the obvious stuff, the countertop and living room and studio stuff, out of my sight. I buried my nose in the funky bed a couple times and carried it out to put with the trash. I mean, you don't save a giant dirty dog bed just so you can smell it...or do you? No. You don't. Stop it. Stop crying. Put it in the can.

It was like that. Awful. Fighting with  myself the whole way, I drove to town with cans of expensive dog food and a 30 pound bag of Fromm's kibble that I'd recently opened. The cans rolled around in the back of the car, thrashing like a thing alive, and I fought back tears as the frugal child of Depression-era parents rounded the curves, determinedly taking all that good food back to the stores. I prayed that the customer service person at Giant Eagle would be the nice woman with frosted hair, and she was. She didn't bat an eye, understanding instantly why a person would up and buy $64 worth of canned dog food the same week her dog died. Crazy, hopeful heart, swimming up De Nile, hedging against reality. He can't be dying. Look. I have all this food.

 This kind and lovely woman looked me in the eyes and told me a story about her two elderly pugs that both went blind and developed diabetes, requiring special food and two shots each per day. She had to leave work at 9 AM, rush home, shoot them both up and feed them, then rush back, all on her brief break. Same thing at dinnertime. Two and a half years of this, before she finally hit the wall and admitted to herself that it wasn't fair to the dogs or her; that it was nothing but a holding pattern against the inevitable.  And she had them both put down on the same day. Good Lord. Crass as it sounds, she made me feel, I don't know...lucky... that Chet had been holding his own, more or less, until he wasn't. And that it was all so clear. We bonded. Dogs, man. They can lift you so high, but they can, through no fault of their own, rip your heart out, too. You can substitute "People" and "Love" in that sentence. "Life," while you're at it.

I went to my favorite pet store (the kind that has only shelter animals for adoption) and got sad faces and hugs from lovely Christy and Ethan. They took back the enormous bag of Fromm's, even though it had been opened. I felt humbled and grateful and appreciated in this small town. I felt embraced, figuratively and literally. I could buy people food with the money they gave me, and I did. It felt right. I was grateful. I seriously didn't know how much longer I could keep throwing fistfuls of money at poor Bacon, trying to keep him among the living. It had been a hard year and a half.

Prompted by the kindness I'd been shown, I was losing it again. At that moment, Shila texted to ask where I was, whether I was in town. (She's a little witchy, that way, and others). 

Yes, I'm in a parking lot in Marietta, crying, why do you ask?

Come to my office, and I'll give you a session, she wrote.

 I think that's about the only thing I'd have said yes to at that moment--cranio-sacral and polarity therapy from my best friend. Yes. Oh, yes.

So I drove out to Wellness Unlimited in Reno, Ohio, and lay on the table while Shila worked her magic on me, settling my nervous system, letting me cry and fall asleep three different times from the sheer comfort of healing touch and pure kindness, saving me yet again. After the session, Shila said, "Let's go out and gather some acorns for Jemima. The jays have been going crazy in the oaks out back." So we walked out to look for acorns on the ground. We couldn't find any. What were there were still small and very green, and hanging on the branches. Shila walked over to a second tree and I followed her. 

I will say here that I wasn't exactly sure why Shila wanted to gather acorns for Jemima, she who eats so well on chicken and rice and sweet corn and pecans. But I knew enough to follow her out into the back lot behind her office.

Under the second tree, we were distracted by an enormous orange and yellow wasp darting back and forth just above the ground. "Ooh look, a cicada killer! What's it got?"

The wasp was making repeated sallies at something very odd looking, lying on the ground. 

"Oh my God!" we said in unison. "It's a red bat!!"

The bat was in defensive posture, wings spread, but when we knelt beside it it brought its wings in and covered its eyes.  My heart got a brand new crack in it. I mean, look at that little creature, legs spread wide, covering its eyes, so afraid, so helpless.

Oh, sweetie. How did you get yourself in this pickle, here on the ground?

I can't tell you. I just want to cover my eyes and forget about it. I want you to go away. But the big wasp is scaring me so.

For one of North America's larger bats, it was so, so tiny. What looks like its junk here--the pink protrusion--is actually the base of its tail, which extends down into the well-furred tail membrane. Examining these photos, I can see (in retrospect) that it's a female, probably a juvenile. The other hint to that is the heavy frosting of her fur. Males are more uniformly red. I was way too excited to do a proper evaluation of this little bat's junk. I was programmed to receive, and get this bat into Zick's Hotel, Spa and Hostel for whatever she might need. And she'd be able to check out whenever she was ready.

Shila ran to fetch a towel and lidded plastic shoebox from her office while I fought off the urge to pick it up with my bare hands (never! even after two rabies shot series). It was a cool, rainy afternoon and the poor craithur was cool to the touch, nearly torpid. I couldn't divine what on earth it was doing lying on the ground. Red bats occasionally roost on the ground in leaf litter, but this one had nowhere to hide. I didn't know what the cicada killer had in mind by circling around and darting at the bat, but I knew it was nothing good. Could the wasp have stung it, hoping to paralyze it and carve it up for food, the way they do cicadas? What an awful thought!  And: Not on my watch! Begone, wasp!

Using the towel, we gently folded the bat up and put it in the Tupperware with the lid on tight. It'd be fine for the ride home. I started thinking about what I had at home to feed it. I'd had to throw out all three bins of homegrown mealworms when they became infested with mites, what a bummer! Teeming with lovely tiny worms, and a moving gray mat of mites. Nope. Not in my basement. Out they'd gone.

I couldn't think of a better food for a compromised bat than wasp larvae. I've resorted to robbing paper wasp nests many times in the past when I've been suddenly caught with a creature needing live food. I can't even remember now how I hit on it, but paper wasp larvae are the bomb, and easily obtainable, if you have the guts. I remember now that I might have gone into the combs I knocked out of my greenhouse out of curiosity, just to see the larvae and pupae in different stages, and then it occurred to me that the baby box turtles I was raising might appreciate them, and I was off, feeding wasp grubs to animals.

Having done this more than a few times, I have noticed, while harvesting wasp grubs, that in the past four years or so there is a situation with parasitic larvae in the combs. Pictured below are three healthy wasp grubs--the three big fat ones. Also in the picture are three parasitized wasp grubs--the small round shriveled ones with black heads. And there are five predatory larvae in with them (the thinner ones with tiny brown heads).  I suspected these to be the larvae of another wasp or perhaps a fly, because structurally they are similar, if a lot slimmer and more mobile. Sharp eyes of entomologist Sam Jaffe spotted lepidopteran characteristics (the prolegs are a dead giveaway!) He suggested Chalcoela iphitalis, the Sooty-winged Chalcoela moth, as the parasite.

This is a healthy paper wasp nest--you can see eggs and grubs in the cells. Also, the cells with silken roofs are not perforated. There are healthy maturing wasp pupae in the roofed cells.

This me holding the healthy nest next to one that is badly parasitized. It's dirty and full of silk layers, and all the caps that should have pupae beneath them are perforated in many places. They've been chewed through, and there are predatory larvae in the cells that should hold healthy paper wasp pupae. Ut-oh.

A possible culprit is here in Jim McCormac's excellent blogpost about a moth that bedevils paper wasps. Many thanks to awesome entomologist Ted MacRae for helping me try to figure out what these larvae might be.  And to  similarly awesome Sam Jaffe for pointing me to Sooty-winged Chalcoela. And to Ohio's pride, all around naturalist Jim McCormac for writing it up. If I'd been smart I'd have let some mature to see what they pupated into. But I had a hungry bat!! 

Inquiry fell behind the need to feed this beastlet. Between the three nests I knocked down (all I could find), I got enough larvae, both paper wasp and parasite, to feed the bat for four sessions.

And now, the bat. Movie 1 is her first feeding. Oh, she's so slow and cold and sad. But she gets a little more gusto with each juicy grub I give her.





She's perking up!



I fear I frightened her a bit with my chuckles and snorts. Look how much more lively she is after only three larvae!



Truly, I'd been so sad that finding this little waif and seeing her come back to life was almost too much for me to take. It was too sweet. I had to laugh in delight.

I just want to say that when Shila and I get together, stuff like this happens. She suggests we walk out into a light rain under some oak trees to look for acorns??? and we find no acorns. No, we stumble upon this magic little animal my favorite bat of all favorite bats who might have died had we not been right there, at that spot, at that moment.

The little voice is strong in Shila, and it's strong in me, and when we get together, it fairly shouts. And we listen. We listen hard.