Bats
All summer long there have been little turds on the bridge right outside my back door. They look like mouse turds, only a little bigger, and a little more ragged on the ends. I never thought that much about them. Animals do, after all, poop, and it was outside, and who am I to say what poops where. I run a continual battle with mice indoors, where I am massively offended by mouse turds on the counters and behind the microwave. If they can't find their way back OUTside where they belong, I have no problems setting traps.
A couple days ago, when I was taking my supper, or a late-afternoon snack out back, I swept the backdoor turds off, so I could sit down turd-free. Wildlife consisted of the the inevitable swarms of mosquitos and the siren of cicadas, and flittering of birds, and scampering of squirrels, but I noticed the next day that the back door turds had returned. This was something ACTIVELY pooping outside my back door.
I looked up. There is a strip of hardy plank screwed up parallel to the eaves, covering a screen, venting the crawl space under the roof. What could be up there? I press my face against the wall, and see something curved. A squirrel tail? Sure looks like it to me.
I go into action, call my former husband who built the addition with this roof and this venting system to ask how it connects with the rest of the house. If there are squirrels in the crawl space (which has no wiring because the wiring is all below the ceiling), can they get into the rest of the house. I do not want squirrels in the house. They do incredible damage. I need to borrow some live traps. Former husband recommends poison (sorry, but no). Younger son says he's been hearing LOTS of scratching in the walls. Sounds like squirrels to me, but how the hell are they getting in. Quixote and I had fixed the hole under the eaves on the other side of the house, and had no longer heard squirrel noises above the dining room.
I drag the extension ladder over to the spot, climb up, and sure enough, above the strip of hardy plank, there is an opening. It would take a pretty acrobatic animal to dangle down over the edge of the roof, and swing into that space, but having spent my entire adolescence watching the battle between the squirrels and my father over the birdfeeders, I know they're plenty acrobatic. But the screen covering the opening into the crawl space is completely intact. A squirrel who'd come down from the roof, but who hadn't actually gone INTO the house? Seems a little odd to me. But I can fix opening, just in case.
I cut strips of hardware cloth to fold over the opening in the top. As I'm doing so, I hear a high-pitched pulsing squeak. Some kind of insect? It doesn't really sound like a cicada, or any of the other insects continually serenading us, but I'd never heard anything like it. The squirrel-tail curve is gone, but there's definitely something there. I poke a strip of hardware cloth up there to try to dislodge it. It's noise gets louder. I bang on the outside, and the noise moves up along the strip farther away from me. I press my head again to the wall (actually, perhaps for the hundredth time), and see another furry curve, but this time it has a ear--a little ear like a mouse's that turns forward and back. A bat!
I am absolutely delighted. Quixote had built a bat-house for me a couple years ago, but we'd never put it up. It was going to go on this very wall. Bats to eat the swarms of mosquitos!
Quixote and I waited a long time that evening for the bat to come out. Finally we succumbed to the mosquitos and went back inside, and an hour later it was gone.
It didn't come back in the morning. After a whole summer of pooping outside my backdoor, I had finally recognized its presence, and then promptly traumatized it, thinking it was a squirrel, or some kind of large loud insect. I'm really bummed. I hope it forgets its assaults, and returns. We'll have to put the bat house up, though evidently this narrow strip venting the crawl space is the perfect size. Our neighborhood NEEDS bats.
A couple days ago, when I was taking my supper, or a late-afternoon snack out back, I swept the backdoor turds off, so I could sit down turd-free. Wildlife consisted of the the inevitable swarms of mosquitos and the siren of cicadas, and flittering of birds, and scampering of squirrels, but I noticed the next day that the back door turds had returned. This was something ACTIVELY pooping outside my back door.
I looked up. There is a strip of hardy plank screwed up parallel to the eaves, covering a screen, venting the crawl space under the roof. What could be up there? I press my face against the wall, and see something curved. A squirrel tail? Sure looks like it to me.
I go into action, call my former husband who built the addition with this roof and this venting system to ask how it connects with the rest of the house. If there are squirrels in the crawl space (which has no wiring because the wiring is all below the ceiling), can they get into the rest of the house. I do not want squirrels in the house. They do incredible damage. I need to borrow some live traps. Former husband recommends poison (sorry, but no). Younger son says he's been hearing LOTS of scratching in the walls. Sounds like squirrels to me, but how the hell are they getting in. Quixote and I had fixed the hole under the eaves on the other side of the house, and had no longer heard squirrel noises above the dining room.
I drag the extension ladder over to the spot, climb up, and sure enough, above the strip of hardy plank, there is an opening. It would take a pretty acrobatic animal to dangle down over the edge of the roof, and swing into that space, but having spent my entire adolescence watching the battle between the squirrels and my father over the birdfeeders, I know they're plenty acrobatic. But the screen covering the opening into the crawl space is completely intact. A squirrel who'd come down from the roof, but who hadn't actually gone INTO the house? Seems a little odd to me. But I can fix opening, just in case.
I cut strips of hardware cloth to fold over the opening in the top. As I'm doing so, I hear a high-pitched pulsing squeak. Some kind of insect? It doesn't really sound like a cicada, or any of the other insects continually serenading us, but I'd never heard anything like it. The squirrel-tail curve is gone, but there's definitely something there. I poke a strip of hardware cloth up there to try to dislodge it. It's noise gets louder. I bang on the outside, and the noise moves up along the strip farther away from me. I press my head again to the wall (actually, perhaps for the hundredth time), and see another furry curve, but this time it has a ear--a little ear like a mouse's that turns forward and back. A bat!
I am absolutely delighted. Quixote had built a bat-house for me a couple years ago, but we'd never put it up. It was going to go on this very wall. Bats to eat the swarms of mosquitos!
Quixote and I waited a long time that evening for the bat to come out. Finally we succumbed to the mosquitos and went back inside, and an hour later it was gone.
It didn't come back in the morning. After a whole summer of pooping outside my backdoor, I had finally recognized its presence, and then promptly traumatized it, thinking it was a squirrel, or some kind of large loud insect. I'm really bummed. I hope it forgets its assaults, and returns. We'll have to put the bat house up, though evidently this narrow strip venting the crawl space is the perfect size. Our neighborhood NEEDS bats.