Sharks gotta swim and bats gotta fly...

[crfriend]

With apologies to Tom Lehrer for the subject line.

Sapphire posted me this link to me a few minutes ago and my heart almost melted. How can anyone hate such a cute little face?

I quite candidly admit to usually rooting for the underdog (I was one of the few "pulling for" the shark in Jaws), but the above is a good example of things going right. Here in New England, our night-time team of insectivores is under serious pressure from a form of mold that's growing on their noses and that they cannot seem to clear off on their own. The population is down dramatically from prior years. If the evening skies go empty (save for insects), not only will I be saddened but the ecosystem will likely have problems.

[skirted_in_SF]

I still have a memory of camping on the edge of an opening in the forest about three to four miles in from the road in the Trinity Alps of Northern California. Just as full dark was about to come on, I saw a stream of bats emerging from the top of a dead, apparently hollow tree. Even a stream of bats can't control the mosquitoes around a mountain lake. That time I was happy that I had a netting cover for my sleeping bag. On a previous visit I had to cower with a towel over my head zipped inside my too-warm bag.

[Big and Bashful]

Are batty things protected in the US? Here if you have bats in your belfry, you are not allowed to do anything to remove them because they are a protected species. It's not impossible, but it is very difficult to legally get them removed from your loft. Thinking about it, I haven't seen a bat for a year or two, or maybe my memory is fading!

[janrok]

I find bats kind of cute.
In summer at sundown I sit in my garden watching the bats flying in their staccato pattern catching insects that otherwise could sting me.
Useful creatures indeed....
Jan.

[Sinned]

There was a hotel in Cuba that was unusual for us. Mostly we ate outdoors beside an outdoor water feature. We were puzzled the first full day that we were there as we kept seeing things out of the "corner or our eyes". On enquiry we were told that what we were seeing were bats. But they flew so fast that we never did see them. It was a case of by the time the eye registered that they were coming they were gone. They were feeding off insects from the fishy waters. Never did really see the insects either.

We do have bats around us as there are trees and streams about and we only ever see them at twilight.