The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

We had a large family gathering here on the farm some three weeks ago. It was late evening after a supper of great leftovers that had been left over from the gathering. About then, a bat came swooping over our heads.

That’s not good.

It gets worse. Another flying bat joined the party. One must assume that kids running in and out of the house may have left a door open, an invitation that, for some reason, these two bats could not resist. One theory might be that they were pursuing mosquitoes that headed inside the house. 

Nonetheless, here we are now, two bats doing their chaotic back-and-forth fake bombing runs over our heads. Let’s take a break here and examine the phrase: “Bats in your belfry.” This expression comes from the large towers over churches where the church bell is located, a location loved by bats. (So that’s what a belfry is.) 

Someone is acting like they have bats in her or his belfry, which means they are acting extremely erratically, which is what bats in church belfrys do. And in our kitchen. Quite often, this expression can be aptly applied to people in the news, usually politicians, who are doing things quite erratically, like bats.

Erratic,  like what the bats now over our head in the kitchen this evening are doing. Now, I like bats, but after having found out that a close friend was apparently bitten during his sleep and had to go through a rabies shot regimen, I’m maybe less of a fan.

Here’s some things not to do when one finds a bat in the house. Run around and holler. Since bats are navigating on sound waves they send out and receive, other sounds are not helping.

Wave your arms around in the air–even worse, wave towels–and think you’re herding cows. Once again, bats need good echoes from which to determine directions. Waving arms are interrupting their radar. Maybe they fly around erratically because you’re running around the same way.

I opened the front door, and on one bat’s circuit around the house, it found out that there were no echoes coming from that direction–because open doors don’t have echoes–and out it flew.

One gone. The other disappeared. I stayed up and read. And waited. And suddenly, it appeared. It flew around over my head, and around the ceiling fan…

Wait. Wait a minute here. What does a whirling fan do to a bat’s radar? Nothing good, that’s for sure. So I shut the ceiling fan off, the bat flew across the kitchen into the east room, and I shut the door on it. It can spend the night in there, I figure.

We watched that room for the next few nights. No bat. Looked around all the high shelves. No bat. Well. One can only conclude that it must have flown out the open front door unobserved.

Last night, nearly three weeks later with no sight of our friendly bat, here it is, circling the kitchen. I opened the front door, shut off the ceiling fan, and on its third circle, the bat flew out the door.

So we learned a couple of things. One is give the bat someplace to go back where it came from, like an open door. Two is shut off ceiling fans. Three would be don’t run around in a circle like you have bats in your belfry. (I did have a fishing net ready, in case the bat wanted to stay in the kitchen. Didn’t need it.)

So where was this bat the last three weeks? Did it wake up late at night and fly around the house eating errant mosquitoes? Did it fly around us sleeping humans and wonder why we’re not up and chasing mosquitoes like real bats?

Did it just take a long nap?

Perhaps bats have to go on vacations, like people do. 

I wonder what a rotating ceiling fan looks like to a bat, though. It’d be fun to know