The Belfry is Clean

Remember our bats?

We have been visited at least three times.  The first time, our dearly beloved Morgan cat alerted us to the existence of the winged creature in our bedroom when he started running like a crazy cat all over the bed.  We turned on the light--a bat!  It was the middle of the night, but we managed to get someone in pest control on the phone to advise us to trap it in a cardboard box against a flat surface.  And brave Mama did (spiders, she won't do; bats, no problem.)  In truth, we were more worried that the cat would get it and get rabies or something, so we locked him out of the room--he desperately beat at the door, no doubt sure he was much better qualified to catch the thing.

The second bat visit was much the same, but I think Morgan was no longer with us by then.  Again, Mama trapped and released it.

The third bat was last year.  We never saw it, only I heard it flapping and saw a shadow of something overhead in the air conditioner return as I was walking to the bathroom around 10 pm one night.  Ugh.  We figured the first bat got in when we had the chimney fixed; the second when we re-roofed.  But we don't know how the third got in.

We had the bat excluders out soon after that to seal the attic.  Did you know a bat can squeeze anywhere the tip of a pencil will fit?  Just like a mouse.  They were very humane excluders--they have to be because there are laws protecting bats and their young.  No bats were harmed in the process, well, if you don't count becoming homeless.

And so we needed the attic cleaned once the bats were excluded, but with Mama's surgery and all, last summer turned out to be too overwhelming.  And so they attic cleaners came this week.  Apparently, there wasn't a lot of guano--there never was a colony in our attic, just a few random bats.  In fact, most of the mess was from the roofers who replaced our roof and left all their detritus in the rafters as well as the previous occupants who abandoned window screens, old doors, a couple of huge wooden ladders, and tons of planking up there.  So, the attic people cleaned it all up, sprayed anti-microbial stuff, and even replaced the very old insulation.  Now maybe our roof won't be the first on the block to lose its snow cover!  And I won't have to think I live under that bridge in Austin with the millions of bats.

There was one wonderful thing they found in the attic, but that's my next post.

Bird Brains

We have birds on the brain over here.

It started a few weeks ago, I think, when the Daisies and siblings went to the Audubon Center and saw some birds of prey--a peregrine falcon, a red-tailed hawk, plus a barn owl and a turkey vulture.  Sis bought a bird log in the shop, a kid's journal with spaces for drawings and details about bird encounters.  When she got home, she began to fill it out with the birds at the center.

The following Sunday at church, the RE classes went on a nature walk with a naturalist/bird expert.  They saw a mourning dove, a starling, and a cooper's hawk.  The hawk was eating and flew off with its bit of squirrel, to the kids' delight.  They also learned some bird calls (including the "nose" bird call, which is sounded through a pinched nose) and when certain birds begin waking (different ones at different hours between 4-8 a.m.).  Of course, all of this went in the bird log.  And then, after church, we played a new game:  hawk-and-squirrel tag.  I think you can imagine.

Sis now sees birds everywhere and dutifully puts them in her book:  Canadian geese, red-winged blackbird, seagull, swan, cardinal.  And she's talking birds with Gommie and Pop, who always have a bird story. like their recent spotting of a Ross's goose.

Of course, Mama and I have one other kind of winged creature on our mind, which is of course not a bird:  the bat in our belfry.  It has not resurfaced or reemerged, but there is proof in the attic that it wasn't a solitary visit.  So, the bat people will be coming to do an exclusion, which involves sealing up our roof anywhere there is a crevice wider than a pencil tip, and then the renovation people will come clean and restore the attic.  I guess that's our house project for 2012.

I think I like bird-watching better.