Driving Me Batty

Posted on by hollyfrostgoldportpress

By Holly the Assistant

(So today is the last day of the Annual ATH fundraiser, by the way.)

I know you all like cute critters, and we had one stop by earlier this week.

A bit of background: many, many years ago this house was built by some very weird people, and many years ago it was remodeled by some even weirder people. We do not have, nor do we need, air conditioning, and a fair part of the house will stay survivable even without heat in the winter. Most of our neighbors are not so fortunate and have more conventional homes. One result of this weirdness is that we are committed to daily opening and closing of the ventilation during the hot season. And I do mean committed: missing the moment by as little as five minutes means we gain a degree or two of extra daytime heat. And the windows mostly no longer work by crank, but must be opened by pushing out and closed by pulling in.

So, at approximately seven-twenty am, as the sun came over the ridge, on Tuesday morning, with less than the preferred amount of coffee in my system, I pulled the screens off our bedroom windows, pulled the windows shut, and put the screens back up. As I put the last screen back up, I noticed something in the corner that did not belong there. On the outside of the screen, mind you, but it did NOT belong there, and that screen had just been sitting on my bedroom floor while I fussed with the window!

Now, bats are all very well and fine, I loathe mosquitoes, but bats belong in the cracks and crevices and tunnels in the rocks on the mountain behind the house, across the creek. They do NOT belong in my bedroom window!

The bat hung out there for a while, as the day got hotter, and I kept the cats and dogs shut out of the room because the last thing I need is a bat loose in the house and a torn up screen. By and by, though, when we checked on him, we found he’d relocated to the bottom of the window screen.

Yes, I need to clean the window. But that’s probably the best detail photo of the little guy we got. Because understandably, we weren’t getting close. There has been a rabid bat in our county already in 2026, my husband went through treatment for a rabid dog bite as a child, and we do not mess with this risk. As a household, we may be slightly more paranoid than average about rabies.

At this point, my husband carefully pried the window open and the little guy crawled out, and ascended the wall.

He crawled around the wall for a while, then flew off. In the middle of the afternoon. I wish him well and hope he eats many, many bugs, and does not return to my house again, but sleeps in the rocks where he should be.

We think he’s a Little Brown Bat, based on size and ears and range of species, and we’re glad to have him and his kin around. Just . . . please not quite so close!

It amuses me which friends and relatives freaked out about rabies and which did not, which fell in love with the bat via photos, and how many did not mention white nose syndrome (no one, but it was the second thing that occurred to me in finding a bat where one ought not be).

I hope you enjoyed seeing our surprise guest!

Thank you all very much for your support of According To Hoyt, and for being a pretty awesome community of commenters. We love having you here. This is your last day of being bugged to support the blog this year, mostly because I pointed out to Sarah that this is a five Friday month and asked her to keep the fundraiser going until the third Friday for those biweekly folks who will get three paychecks. She grumbled, yes, but she hates having to ask in the first place for money.


There is a Give Send Go fundraiser for this specific fundraiser set up. Here is a Paypal Me Link if you prefer that. (Yes, I know. Paypal, but for now, they’re behaving.) If you have a monthly donation setup to the permanent Give Send Go, that is still working and thank you! There are also two substacks you can subscribe to. One is on the side bar of the blog, the other is supposed to be a newsletter, as well as giving you chapters of the current work in progress if you become a paid subscriber. It takes cards. For snail mail: Sarah Hoyt 304 S Jones Blvd #6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107

And if you want to read the whole appeal, it’s here: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers

23 thoughts on “Driving Me Batty”

  5. And during certain times of the year the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin is home to roughly half of the world’s bats (or so it seems).

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  6. Oops, I forgot to wish everybody a happy Trinity Day yesterday. 😛

    When Robert Oppenheimer, Leslie Groves and Edward Teller proved certain aspects of atomic theory correct by lighting a second sunrise in the Nevada desert.

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      1. WPDE, didn’t intend to submit.

        Wiki says the site was originally called Jornada del Muerto*, but was renamed to White Sands Proving Ground shortly before the test.

        (*) My Spanish is medium awful, but that last word sounds significant.

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  7. If it is indeed a Little Brown, then that is great news seeing as they have been endangered on the east coast for a while. Their populations were devastated by White Nose Syndrome. And I’ve been given to understand that WNS has jumped to the west and is now impacting those colonies.

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  8. Flying rats. Yes they eat bugs, so do opossums, so do other critters. I agree it’s good to let nature take care of nature, and I also agree nature belongs in nature not in our man made caves. I wont spray poison all over so long as you respect that, don’t and I get to kill you. Yes some have burned the house down, but hey the spider is dead.

    I reached for the raid and instead grabbed a can of spray glitter.
    Now the spider won’t stop dancing and I am supposed to call it Cinnamon.

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    1. Long ago memories (50 years, I think) of sitting at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns watching the bats coming out for munchies. Impressive, both in sight and smell. Eau de Bat Guano is potent.

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  12. Rabies is no joke. Never had to deal with it personally. Rabies is endemic in the west.

    Lane County has had three (3) confirmed rabies in bats in 2026. The word is out to have all pets, even indoor only pets, currently vaccinated for rabies. Dogs are required to be. Pepper’s is tied to her county dog tag renewal timing.

    Cats are not required to be vaccinated for rabies. But if a cat (or any domestic animal) scratches or bites someone, and you can’t produce a valid rabies vaccination (even if it means getting a signed certificate from your vet) or a titer rabies test to show the animal has the rabies antibodies, the cat (animal) will be put down, and further tests to determine whether the animal has rabies or not. Meanwhile, the human exposed is getting expensive and painful treatment.

    All our animals have had their rabies vaccinations. This is one vaccination I will not skimp on.

    Buddy’s sibling was sick. In capturing her, the individuals were hurt badly. She was put down. The individual ended up in the hospital. Nothing has been said whether she had rabies or not. The cats, she as well as Buddy (whom we brought home at age 3), had their rabies vaccinations when they were spayed/neutered. So they should have been good. Our veterinarian treated Buddy as a stray TNR, who may or may not have been current but due for his rabies. He is due again (3 years), this August.

    https://www.lanecountyor.gov/government/county_departments/health_and_human_services/public_health/public_health_news/rabies_bats_2026

    Correction from article: 13 bats, not 3.

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  13. At my parents we had a bat twice get in and hang about in the fireplace. Fortunately, we had glass doors on it. The bat removal folks also were able to put a thing on the chimney top to keep them out.

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