12 June 2016

wildlife thrill

I am lagging on putting up pictures- the green beans are flowering and little slivers of beans growing- soon we can eat! Tomatoes are blooming, lettuce is bolting into towers and the beets and carrots filling up the biggest plot with leafy foliage. Borage has buds, and I think I've finally got rid of all the caterpillars that were eating my broccoli leaves.

But what thrilled me today wasn't in the garden. I was filling water buckets from the leaky tap (keep a plastic bin under it and every few days I empty it out to water the garden, since we haven't got the drip fixed yet). Something dark fluttered suddenly around my head, and darted up to a corner under the decking. I thought it was a large butterfly. I stepped close to the deck post to see it, and got a better look as it settled its wings and crawled into a crevice- it's a bat! I'm hosting a bat! I love having a bat living here- great for insect control- especially mosquitoes. Never did hang up my bat house- we have aluminum siding and I couldn't convince my husband to put holes in it yet...

I hope the bat is staying here and not just resting for a moment- worried it will get disturbed because we go to that spot under the deck very often. But it's small (the bat) and very well concealed in its crevice. Sneaking closer even though I knew exactly where to look, it was very hard to see it. I won't tell the kids where it is. I hope the fact that it was out in the daytime doesn't mean it is ill. Maybe it just got wakened by my activity around the water faucet and was settling back in?

2 comments:

Jeane said...

Well, it is not there today. With better light I could see into the crevice from further off- not getting as close. But it's empty. The bat moved on.

MOM said...

sorry he moved on. Maybe next year. Keep looking for a location for your bat house.