Like a Bat Out of Hell

It's bad enough I have to be on alert for the badger that I know is stalking me on my morning run, but now I have another problem.

Bats.

Yes, those creepy little flying rodents apparently have found a home somewhere in my neighborhood, and last week, I ran in to a colony of them (I was looking down trying to avoid a badger attack) and they weren't too happy about it.

Remember Hitchcock's The Birds? Imagine it with bats, and me running through the neighborhood at 5 a.m. screaming at the top of my lungs while bats dove on me, surely intent on sucking the life force from me, or at least messing up my hair. Forget the school children. I set a new record for my 3 miles that morning. Go Me.

Of course, the intelligent thing to do when you know there is a colony of bats in the neighborhood is to avoid their nesting area at dawn. However, in my family, we have a saying: If you didn't take a picture, it didn't happen.

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So I went back.

I thought about dressing as Batgirl to convince the bats that I was one of their own and hopefully they wouldn't attack. However, running in the boots proved to be too difficult and purple isn't really my color. Oh well, it's just one picture, and I knew to stay far enough away that I could outrun them if they noticed me, so what could happen?

The colony, I noticed, consisted of a few adults and mostly babies. Babies learning to fly, most of them not very good at it. Cute, in a freaky flying rodent kind of way. I got as close as I thought I could, grabbed my camera and aimed.

Flash or no flash at dawn?

Flash.

Contrary to myth, bats are not afraid of light. However, a sudden flash of light for new babies learning to fly in the pre-dawn darkness is startling, and although the babies were already uncoordinated, the addition of a flash was more than a few could handle. I heard one squeal, just before he hit a tree. I assumed he was laughing.

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Not the actual mother bat.

Mother Bat did not find it funny at all.

They say bats don't attack humans. Well, I know they chase humans, I proved that last week. And if they don't attack humans, what exactly was Mother Bat's intentions as she flew straight toward me, her wings spread to a good twelve feet (estimating), her mouth open and her claws sprung? I don't think she was posing for a picture.

And then I heard 'the words' that told me it was time to break a new speed record.  As a mother, I can translate those words from any language: French, Spanish, Bat.

"YOU MESS WITH MY KIDS YOU MESS WITH ME!"

I ran like, like, like....A bat out of Hell.

And made it home again with my eyeballs.

Bats 1. Kelly 1.

I was willing to call it a tie. Until this morning.

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Not my tree

I grabbed a cup of coffee and went to sit on my back porch with my dog.

I looked up and my pine tree was covered. With bats.

They found me.

                                          This war is on.

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