A bat??

My husband, John, called me on my cell phone to come out to the barn and look at a bat. The bat was curled up in a leaf my husband had found. I put on gloves, grabbed a towel, a box and headed to the barn. Since I had grown up in the country, similar expeditions had visited me before. I was ready with my bat box. 

I was happy to see my husband also wearing gloves. I did not want any “human smells” to get on the bat. As the tiny animal now lay on the ground, I had instant empathy for him. He was so small, a brown little guy curled up in a leaf. He was only about 3-4 inches long. In the Northwest we do not have a lot of bats. The “Little Brown Bat” (Myotis lucifugous) only weighs about 0.2 to 0.4 ounces. 

He lay motionless curled up in a brown leaf. I knew he was not dead but instead he lay motionless to “play dead” to fool us into thinking he was dead. His ploy did not work on me. 

…continued next week…