Don't try this at home, kids.
I was preparing to go out yesterday, and I was just finishing brushing my teeth, when an unusual reflection in the bathroom mirror caught my eye.
We have a suspended ceiling in the bathroom with little lights fitted into the ceiling panel. There is currently an empty hole in the panel where a burnt-out light has been removed. So what I saw in the mirror was a bat hanging half out of that hole, head first. It startled the hell out of me, so I jumped out of the bathroom and left the door ajar to watch the bat through the crack. It soon got out of the whole and jumped onto the floor.
Then I quickly recovered from the initial shock and started to think of how to get the bat out of the apartment. I wouldn't try to catch it with my bare hands, so I called my father to ask him if he kept any of those thick tarpaulin working gloves at home. He didn't. He suggested that I used an oven glove, but I thought they were too thin for handling a creature with claws. Then he told me to throw on top of it some of the old clothes we use as cleaning rags. Then I remembered the handling of animals I'd watched on Animal Planet.
So I waited for the bat to stop fluttering around the bathroom and went in with a thick redundant piece of fabric folded in two in my hands. Poor thing was afraid of me much more than I was afraid of it, so it just sat there in the corner screaming. I managed to gently throw the fabric on top of it, and then covered it with the towel we use to dry our hands. Then I carefully wrapped the fabric and towel around it - tightly enough not to let it escape, but loosely enough not to hurt it, and rushed onto the balcony where I carefully unwrapped it and let it fly away. I was lucky that it was too afraid to fight or try to escape as I was carrying it.
Then it perched on a tree near my building, and the neighbourhood cat rushed up after it! Thankfully, the bat was very high on the tree, and the cat hesitated a little on her way up. I started talking to her, trying to distract her to give the bat some time to fly away, but it just wouldn't. Then she stopped listening to me and rushed upwards again, but the bat flew away this time before she reached it.
My friend I was preparing to go out with was still online, so I gave her a quick report of the drama at home before I started dressing. She was surprised that I was so brave. LOL
It's still a mystery to me how the bat got into our bathroom. There aren't any windows in it, and the ventilation opening has a grid on it.
Sorry, it didn't occur to me to try to take any photos of the bat. I was just too surprised and in a hurry to get the creature out to think of that.
We have a suspended ceiling in the bathroom with little lights fitted into the ceiling panel. There is currently an empty hole in the panel where a burnt-out light has been removed. So what I saw in the mirror was a bat hanging half out of that hole, head first. It startled the hell out of me, so I jumped out of the bathroom and left the door ajar to watch the bat through the crack. It soon got out of the whole and jumped onto the floor.
Then I quickly recovered from the initial shock and started to think of how to get the bat out of the apartment. I wouldn't try to catch it with my bare hands, so I called my father to ask him if he kept any of those thick tarpaulin working gloves at home. He didn't. He suggested that I used an oven glove, but I thought they were too thin for handling a creature with claws. Then he told me to throw on top of it some of the old clothes we use as cleaning rags. Then I remembered the handling of animals I'd watched on Animal Planet.
So I waited for the bat to stop fluttering around the bathroom and went in with a thick redundant piece of fabric folded in two in my hands. Poor thing was afraid of me much more than I was afraid of it, so it just sat there in the corner screaming. I managed to gently throw the fabric on top of it, and then covered it with the towel we use to dry our hands. Then I carefully wrapped the fabric and towel around it - tightly enough not to let it escape, but loosely enough not to hurt it, and rushed onto the balcony where I carefully unwrapped it and let it fly away. I was lucky that it was too afraid to fight or try to escape as I was carrying it.
Then it perched on a tree near my building, and the neighbourhood cat rushed up after it! Thankfully, the bat was very high on the tree, and the cat hesitated a little on her way up. I started talking to her, trying to distract her to give the bat some time to fly away, but it just wouldn't. Then she stopped listening to me and rushed upwards again, but the bat flew away this time before she reached it.
My friend I was preparing to go out with was still online, so I gave her a quick report of the drama at home before I started dressing. She was surprised that I was so brave. LOL
It's still a mystery to me how the bat got into our bathroom. There aren't any windows in it, and the ventilation opening has a grid on it.
Sorry, it didn't occur to me to try to take any photos of the bat. I was just too surprised and in a hurry to get the creature out to think of that.