Making A Bat-Watching Evening
ABOUT BAT EVENINGS
A decade or so ago, I spent a night along the Klickitat River, in south-central Washington. At some point during during the last couple hours of evening – lost in the roar and peace of the upper Klickitat, and thinking spring Chinook salmon – I became aware of something moving through the darkness around me. When I paused long enough for a good skyward look toward the brighter west, I recognized the little brown bat so common in our country, along with a couple bigger silver-haired bats, and maybe even a long-winged hoary bat or two. That rekindled my “evening watch” interest.
This week, Homey reminded me that we have a lot of young families in Central Washington with evening activity needs. “So,” he challenged, “why aren’t you writing about our bats and where to go watch them?” Okay… Fine.
We are bat blessed. Among at least fifteen species, perhaps millions of bats inhabit Washington State. Most live without human contact, spending days in caves, crevices and behind loose tree bark, house siding and shutters. After spring breeding, males and females separate. By now, one or two babies may be nursing on the wing while clinging to mother. Most will be flying in a month.
Genus Myotis (the little brown) is most common, with Lasiurus (hoary) and Lasionycteris (silver-haired) often seen in wooded country. Bats are at home across the state. Most of ours hibernate here, but some fly south with the hoary bat to Chile or Argentina.
They are all insect eaters, of the Vespertilionid family. Among our best friends, a little brown bat will eat 3,000 mosquitoes in an evening. A flock of 100,000 bats (not uncommon) may consume more than a ton of insects in the same time period. Bats sometimes fly into gatherings of insects, crippling them with their wings and scooping them into folds between their legs to be consumed as they continue to hunt.
“Blind as a bat?” Hardly; bats easily see predators and landscape. For catching food, however, they use sonar, calling up to 200 times/second when “locked-on” to a target. Using the return echoes, the bat is able to precisely intercept its insect meal. (Its sonar may be superior to any we have yet created.)
You may have heard that bats don’t really fly – they just glide. Not so. Bats are skillful flyers, often hitting 40 miles per hour for short spurts, skimming low over ground or water to catch insects and drink. Our common little brown may travel 50 miles in a night of foraging.
Wingspans for their tissue-thin wings (attached along sides and back legs) are commonly three times or more their average four-inch body length – a ratio greater than most birds. Most varieties have wingspans of 10 to 12 inches; our largest bats may reach six inches, with wingspans of 16 inches. Wings and bodies weigh far, far less than you might suspect; the tiny western pipistrelle, Pipistrellus hesperus, is three inches long, but weighs only 1/10th of an ounce (more than a penny, but half of a quarter), and our little brown bat, Myotis lucifugus, is three and a half inches long, weighing well under an ounce (maybe three or four quarters).
These flying mammals have long been in human consciousness. In European folklore, bat is often a sinister beast, but the Aztecs, Toltecs, Mayans and other ancients treasured the bat. Its upside-down hanging was likened to an unborn child, and its medicine – teaching – was of spiritual rebirth, the giving up of old ways of being.
Find treasure troves of bat information and status for all bat species at Bat Conservation International (www.batcon.org/). Closer to home, check our the work and meetings of Bats Northwest, headquartered in Seattle. They have regular bat-watching tours around Green Lake and a web page (www.batsnorthwest.org/meet_our_bats.html) with a wealth of information about the status and health of our Northwest bat populations.
Get – and read with your family – a copy of Randall Jarrell’s classic “The Bat-Poet,” from HarperCollins Publishers, and priced from $2 to $6,850 (yep!!) at Amazon. This is the story of a small bat who stumbles across the joy of daylight. Exploring his sensitive artist self, ignored by his bat buddies, the bat poet begins to write poems about the fascinating things ”normal” bats never see. He delights in the activities of birds, chipmunks, and others, writing poetry to describe daytime joys. Pen and ink sketches by Sendak complete the book. Read selections such as:
“…The mother drinks the water of the pond
She skims across. Her baby hangs on tight.
Her baby drinks the milk she makes him
In moonlight or starlight, in mid-air…”
Now then, about Homey’s request. I like the beaver ponds up French Cabin Creek and along the hills on the west side of Lake Cle Elum, but pick most any pond, stream or arm of a lake (less than 100 feet across) in Paradise. Sit on the east side at dusk, and watch the bright western sky over the water until full darkness. Use insect repellent.
Go watch (take a field guide, too). You will soon differentiate species based on ways of flying, hunting and drinking. Some may sing their songs of evening for you.
Happy summer bat-gazing evenings…
