The Better to Hear You With

That passage from “Little Red Riding Hood” could apply as easily to Townsend’s Big-eared Bat, Corynorhinus townsendii, as it does to the Big Bad Wolf. This docile little creature is not nearly as menacing, however, and a true friend to farmers and other folks plagued by insects.

I was fortunate enough to discover this roosting individual inside an abandoned house in Brown Canyon on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona. Thanks to Philip Kline who had informed me of another species of bat in the same house. That bit of knowledge prompted me to venture into what had to be Hanta Virus Central to try my own luck. I found the solitary Townsend’s Big-eared Bat as a result.

Townsend’s Big-eared Bat occurs chiefly west of the Rocky Mountains from southern British Columbia through Mexico, but isolated populations in the Ozark Plateau and Appalachian Mountains are not thriving. Like most bats, this species is incredibly sensitive to any disturbance during hibernation in caves, mine shafts, and similar locations.

Those big ears come in very handy when the bat is hunting. Most insect-eating bats use echolocation to pinpoint their prey in flight, homing in on the audible signals bouncing off their moving target. Big-eared bats have raised this hunting style to an art form, and few moths can escape these nimble fliers.

This species roosts singly during the day in the summer months, but individuals cluster together during winter. Mating happens in late autumn or early winter, and each female gives birth to a single offspring in May or June. Maternity colonies can include several dozen to a few hundred females.

Look for this species in desert scrub or dry pine forest habitats for the most part. Note that many references still list it by its older scientific name, Plecotus townsendii. Besides the extra long ears, often folded back as the one ear in the image above shows, this bat is recognized by the pair of glandular bulbs that rise above the nostrils.

Additional sources of information include this great page by Texas Parks & Wildlife, and this page from Pima County government that likely addresses the subspecies imaged above since Brown Canyon is in the Baboquivari Mountains (pronounced Bab-o-KEEV-er-ee).

Repeat "Offender"

Remember the bat that had flown into the house next door a few weeks ago? Well, I now live in that house, and the landlady was just beginning to breathe easier, thinking the bat had found its way out when….The evening of Monday, August 17 I came home from work and noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. Turns out the bat had been roosting on a window shade at the top of another entry door.

Fortunately, the shade was easily detached from the door, so I simply took the shade and the bat outside, much to the relief of my landlady. The bat flopped off the shade and into some plants along the edge of the back deck. It must have been exhausted, dehydrated, and hungry, at least if it had been in the house the whole time.

After snapping a few pictures of the creature, I decided I should probably try to hang it up on a tree trunk so it could eventually manage a take-off. The bat had other ideas. It was none to eager to receive my “help” and actually flew off from ground level, much to my amazement and relief. I was an instant hero to my landlady, but oh how things can change….

The next night, Tuesday, August 18, I arrived home to find my landlady utterly beside herself on the front porch steps. There were literally two of her there. No, I’m joking. Her mental state was not a laughing matter at all, actually. I did not know what was wrong, and the first words out of her mouth were “I’m going to have to sell my house.” Having just moved in, I was now in total shock myself.

It turns out that the bat was back, in the exact same place from which I had removed it the evening before. I reassured my landlady that this was an easy problem to deal with, but we should probably try and find out where the bat was entering the premises. After once again removing the bat (I attempted no “flight aid” this time), I set about looking for possible entry points.

This home was built in 1913, and trying to find one little crack or crevice where a bat could enter was futile. There are just too many possibilities. The chimney was an obvious choice, but the bottom was blocked by a layer of insulation. A bat would not have an easy time getting through, but it could be done. I decided that the bat must be a descendant of Houdini and let it go at that. My new plan was to simply remove the bat every time it showed up until it learned that it was going to be sent packing every time. I began the paperwork, but then remembered bats can’t read eviction notices.

Fortunately, we have not seen the bat since. I wish it were as easy to convince my landlady that bats are pretty harmless to people, and nothing to be afraid of. Not many people get a chance to see a wild bat up close, and I am sorry that this experience was an unpleasant one for her. Maybe someday I will show her the portrait I took of her uninvited houseguest before it left for the last time. I think it is rather cute, don’t you agree?

Holy Chiroptera, Batman!

I am quite certain that I like bats more than the average person. Still, there are some places I would rather not encounter them. Like inside my house. That is exactly where I found one flitting about in South Deerfield on Tuesday night, August fourth.

It was around eleven PM and I decided I would go out and see if I could find any insects around the lights in town. I opened the door to exit my room to be greeted by an airborne blur and the breeze and sound of wingbeats. I recognized the animal immediately, if only because the next door neighbor had a bat in her own home the week before and the situation was still fresh in my mind.

The bat was doing the flying equivalent of pacing up and down the dark hallway, looping through the kitchen at the other end, and coming back toward my room. Naturally, my first thought was to get my camera and see if I could take some pictures. I chose the kitchen as my vantage point, and got many, many fine shots of the empty room along with three appropriately ghostly images of the bat zipping by the fridge.

At times it seemed the bat had left the area entirely, but it turns out it was still making the rounds, just skimming two to three inches off the floor on occasion. I was incredibly impressed by the aerial skills of this little insectivore. Ok, it really wasn’t that little. Surprisingly large in fact, so I surmised it was probably a “big brown bat,” Eptesicus fuscus, perhaps the most common and widespread species in North America.

Once I had my fill of photography frustration, I simply opened the kitchen door and away it went, presumably to hunt moths and beetles, just like me. It turns out I did exactly the right thing when confronted with a bat in one’s residence. In the weekly e-mail newsletter from the Athol Bird and Nature Club came this tidbit from Mass Wildlife:

BATS IN THE BELFRY
“With summer's hot, humid weather finally here, some Bay State homeowners may discover bats residing in their homes! Attics are the most common portion of a house in which bats roost and raise their young. After a few hot summer days, an attic may become too warm for the bats, forcing them out and sometimes into people's living quarters as they search for cooler places to roost. What's a homeowner to do? Fortunately, a single bat flying in a room can usually be dealt with quite easily. Open an outside window or door in the room containing the bat and close off the rest of the room from the house. It's usually only a matter of a few minutes of circling before the bat locates the open window and leaves the house. Bats do not attack people or fly into people's hair.
If a bat has landed, it can be assisted out of a house in several ways. For a bat on a curtain, place a jar, coffee can or small box over the bat, carefully working the animal into the container, and cover it. A bat on the floor can be covered with a towel. Another method is to put on leather gloves and simply pick up the bat and release it outdoors --don't use cotton gloves or handle a bat with bare hands. Whatever method is used, don't worry when the bat squeaks loudly when handled. Take the bat outdoors and release it. If anyone has had direct contact with a bat or if a bat is found in a room with a sleeping person, the bat should be safely captured but not released. Contact local health officials for assistance in evaluating potential rabies risk and submitting the bat to the Department of Public Health for rabies testing.
Little Brown Bats and Big Brown Bats are the most likely species to be found in buildings. In some cases, with small numbers of bats, people don't mind their presence and concentrate on blocking holes and cracks leading into the human living quarters. Where there is a large colony in house walls, biologists recommend that homeowners wait to initiate eviction proceedings until the first week of August through November. Waiting to evict the colony allows time for young bats to mature and leave the house on their own.
Because Massachusetts and other northeastern states are experiencing a sudden and unexpected decline of bat populations due to a white powdery fungus on bat faces called White Nose Syndrome, the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) reminds all property owners with a summer colony of ten or more bats to report report the colony's location, type of structure where the bats reside, and how many bats are in the colony, by calling….”

This is good information. You can learn even more about bats, and what you can do to help foster a better understanding of these maligned creatures, at Bat Conservation International, the world’s leading organization devoted to bat welfare.