a bat trapped inside

a bat trapped inside 

echolocates its way to

the open window

Friday the thirteenth, a time of new beginnings. Playing the Maya turtle ocarina finally brought rain today, a soft, soaking, spring rain. Standing in the kitchen early this morning, looking out at the saturated hues of green, I catch something dark falling down on the other side of the window. A leaf? But it seems to be inside the sun room, not outside. I open the sliding glass door and immediately a small winged creature begins fluttering back and forth the length of the sun room. A bird? No, the movements are too quick. A bat then. 
          But how did it get in? All the windows are closed. Thinking fairly quickly for this early, I go out on the porch, remove the screen from one of the windows on the east end and open the window. The bat flies toward the windows but lands just above the closed window, clinging to the wooden frame. With a broom I gently coax the bat to start flying again, but it keeps missing the open window. Getting the message, I crank the other window open wide and this time the bat echolocates the opening and swoops out. Now we're wondering if the sounds we've been hearing above our heads are not squirrels or mice but a colony of bats that have been wintering between the roof and the ceiling. But how did this one get into the downstairs sun room?
          Bats are mysterious, but also beautiful and useful. I have always loved watching their graceful acrobatic flight on warm evenings as they catch enormous quantities of harmful insects, consuming a third of their body weight in half an hour. Coincidentally, this year is the Year of the Bat, as proclaimed by Bat Conservation International, and this week, 9-12 April, is Bat Awareness and Appreciation Week. I'm right in tune with the times, my early morning experience making me aware and also appreciative of bats, whether in or around our home.
          Bats continue to be in the news because of the threat of white-nose syndrome, a cold-loving fungus that has killed at least one million hibernating North American bats in the Northeast since 2006 and is spreading westward. In the rain-dark light this morning, I didn't notice whether our bat had a white nose. If it did hibernate in our house, it would certainly have been warmer than in a cave or one of the bat houses we have attached to our sheds. However, I will report our errant bat to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which is collecting information about unusual behavior in bats in the early spring when they emerge from hibernation, such as difficulty flying and flying during the daytime. Our little bat seemed to be flying normally and I'm sure it was flying in the daytime only because we disturbed its sleep.
          My other concern for the bats is our new wind turbine because a number of bat deaths have been reported under wind turbines. Researchers have found that the majority of bats were killed because a sudden drop in air pressure near blades caused injuries to the bats' lungs, called barotrauma. Respiratory systems in birds can withstand such drops but bat lungs cannot. Fortunately, scientists have shown that slowing turbine blades to near motionless in low-wind periods significantly reduces bat mortality. This makes sense because bats don't like to fly when it's really windy, which is when the turbines are reaping the most energy. So this system would be a boon for both bats and the production of energy from the wind. Hurray!