Russell's Blog

I was going out to the garden to wash off the cat-litter-scooper this evening, and I noticed a tiny bat clinging to my screen door. It was hanging out about knee level, and I was worried my cats would take an interest in it. So, I tried to shoo it away, but it just chirped at me and clung onto the screen harder.

I thought maybe it was hurt (or worse, sick), so I captured it in a plastic bowl to observe. It didn't do anything to evade capture, and allowed itself to be sort of gently scooped up by the edge of the bowl. It walked around a little and chirped, but didn't do try to escape.

Since it didn't seem to be interested in flying around the apartment, I transferred it to the lid of the bowl, where it allowed itself to be photographed. I put a bead of water near its nose, which it prodded a little but didn't seem to drink.

I brought it outside again to see if I could get it to fly away. I held the lid out over a soft patch of ground and lowered it quickly, it spread its wings but didn't fly. I tried a few more times, and got it to fly as far as the fence. Finally, some tapping on the fence convinced it to flap away.

Does anyone know if this is normal behavior for this kind of bat?