So if you dont already know I absolutely love bats and am fascinated with them!! I think they are pretty cute too!! This past week we made the discovery that we have these wonderful creatures living around our country home!! At first we thought they were birds, but they were coming out as soon as the sun was going down. One night  We were hanging out by the fire, we noticed that what we thought were birds flying around weren’t birds but bats… it was such an amazing experience!! They Fly around very quickly spiraling around and around and all over the place, it almost looks like they were diving in for something, i think they were eating bugs!! I hate bugs, especially mosquitos, love that about them too!! It’s so cool to watch them!!

 

We just so happened to have signed up for Bats with Jerry, an informational demonstration about bats this week!! Of course bats are wild animals so he told us he couldn’t bring one in, but for us that was no problem, we could have a bat show every night if we wanted!! Lol!! Heres Jerry doing his presentation at the Public Library!! We saw an amazing slide show with all types of bat pictures!! Our favorite was the vampire bat & big eyed fruit bats!! So cool looking!!

 

At this program The Kids even made a shirt!! That was awesome!!

We learned to much about bats, it was really neat!! Some facts are the following; The most popular bat here in Maine is now the big brown bat, which is about 8-10 inches long!! We also have about 8-10 different species that come into Maine, The little brown bat used to be the most popular here in Maine but unfortunately due to a disease called white nose syndrome 2 million bats were lost!! So sad!! They weighed about what 2 pennies would weigh, i thought that was amazing, they are very light and could live up to 35 yrs!! Thats a lot of living for such a small animal!! Jerry mentioned that they are making a comeback but very slowly… bat babies are called pups, they have one per year.. thats not a lot!! Can’t wait till the earth regains its balance and everything in it too!!

We also learned that bats are important because not only do they eat pesky bugs but they disperse seeds…that help give us our food!! Kinda neat!

Another important thing i learned is to help protect bats and thier habitats is to live wilder!! Sounds weird but it means leave things as they are, for instance trees and things around you, even grass… Jerry mentioned he mows half his lawn, and the rest he left alone, “as is”, he called them wildflowers!!! Also you can make bat houses that  are camouflaged and places 10 feet off the ground!! In One of the pictures Jerry is holding a wooden box, that is a bat house that hasn’t been painted 🙂

We saw the truths to this yesterday, when we sadly found that a bat had flown into a window screen and got stuck… that was sad.. im trying to convince my husband to remove our screens to help the poor bats, but he assured me it probably wont happen again… I hope not!!

My kids also love nature, and love animals so they were saddened that the bat had died too! They were so cute because to show respect to his life, they wanted to give him what they called a “proper burial”  Mykids love watching classic movies, so i think its a line from somewhere, this was so touching, love my kiddos!!  They both have such a big heart!!

Jerry was so nice, he made up this game about butterflies!! He was so trusting, he gave me the game & im sending him the money later!! I was pretty surprised!! Thanks so much!! $10.00!! We haven’t played it yet, but the game pieces also tell you what types of plants attract certain butterflies that you can plant in your own garden!! Very neat!!

Hope you liked this post, alittle information about bats and how you can help preserve these little fellows!!