September 22, 2002 ~ "Bats!"

Sunday.

When I got out of Pokey on top of the parking deck downtown last night at dusk, I figured that the twittering chirping was a flock of small birds overhead. I glanced up and then did a double take.

The sky was completely full of bats. Thousands and thousands of bats darting back and forth across the sky, swooping for bugs, fluttering back and forth, dancing with one another. I couldn't stop looking up. I had never seen that many bats all at once in my life. The sky was thick with them; a writhing mass of bats.

In the middle of the city, where do they all live? Has someone built a massive bat habitat? When they fill the air so completely, how can they all possibly get enough to eat?

They were amazing, beautiful, wonderful, and all of those other adjectives that are so overused that they don't really mean anything anymore. I stood there with my neck craned back, pointing at the sky and sputtering stupidly, "Bats! Look, Morgan, look at the bats! There are so many of them!" Until he dragged me toward the parking deck's elevator.

It was a good weekend, and a good visit. Very laid back and relaxing with lots of good food. Since I have vacation this coming week, I have nothing to worry about in the way of things to be done aside from the projects that I set for myself.

Footnotes:

weather: Rainy most of the weekend.

bookmarked: When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals.

observation: I keep forgetting to mention that some paper wasps are building a nest in one of the windows of the house (because the storm window won't stay closed, they could get into the area between the inner window and the storm window). It's usually best to leave paper wasps alone until the nest falls dormant in the winter, and then take it out, so I've been having fun watching them up close through the window. One thing that I've noticed is that half of them have brown heads and the other half have bright yellow spots on their heads. Is that a mark of gender? Does anyone know?

online journals:

"Yes, I know, not the standard bill of fare for a nuthatch, but it would starve to death waiting for me to scrape enough little bugs out of treebark to give it a meal. Little bird charged underneath the stump and quickly ate at least two bugs. And then seemed a little overwhelmed by the squirming mass of arthropods."

~ Grouse in this touching entry which still warms me even after what happened.

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