Yesterday morning was sunny and warm enough to eat breakfast out on the deck. When I went to crank open the umbrella, I saw a silhouette that I immediately recognized as a bat. It stayed there while I ran inside to get the camera and allowed me to come around to take photos. It looked like it was shivering -- I wonder from fear of this large creature. I stood there and we looked each other in the eye for awhile.
At my forest house we'd once had a bat family living in our deck umbrella. It began while we were on vacation and it so happened that our houssitter was Michael Durham, at that time a photographer for The Oregonian newspaper (he's now a photographer at the Oregon Zoo). He took photos of our bat and one appeared in the newspaper.
I slowly closed the umbrella and dragged around another one for shade. When it was time for lunch I gently looked into the folds of the umbrella to see if was still there. I couldn't detect it and so I opened the umbrella. It was there -- but high -- and flew away.
Today bats are challenged by habitat loss and a mysterious epidemic disease. I'd left a bat house in place at my forest house when I moved. Now I'm going to get a bat house or two for the riverhouse.
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