A Little Visitor

Our family hosted a tiny house guest last night. He slept in a shoe box in our garage. He was small, furry, and actually quite cute.

Our guest was a little brown bat.

Ben found the bat in his parking lot last night after work. It was lying injured on the pavement. (The bat has a torn wing.) Ben carefully placed the bat in a box and brought him home to show the kids.

We won't let the kids get too close to the bat. I'm scared he might try to bite if he gets frightened. Once the children were in bed last night, Ben went to the pet store and bought some meal worms. We don't know much about bats, but we thought the bat might eat the worms since he won't be out hunting flying bugs any time soon.

This morning the bat actually looks a bit better. (I wasn't convinced it would survive the night.) He is hanging upside down from the side of the shoe box, has had a bit of water and might have eaten a meal worm or two. If the bat lives through the day, Ben is planning to build a bat box for the backyard tonight.

Ben and I have talked about building a bat box for years. We think bats are pretty interested creatures, to tell the truth. They are impressive insect hunters. Ben read that a single brown bat can eat 1000 mosquitoes in a hour! Ben will hang the small bat box on the side of our fence and we'll see if the little bat will make it his home.

Link: How to build a bat house