Batty for bats

On Saturday, I lured Mr. T to a presentation titled The Other Wings over Willcox: Bats!

Now I have been crazy about bats ever since we moved to the ranch and realized there was no municipal program for mosquito control. Mr. T, not so much. He's inclined to (a) stay inside when the mozzies are out, (b) put up with them or (c) go somewhere they aren't.

However, there being only one car and two of us and Willcox being too far away for me to walk to the event, he agreed to sit in on the session.

While the presenter, Dr. Ronnie Sidner, did bring along 2 of her pet bats and we did get to touch one of them, photos were verboten given the likelihood of flash and the tendency of bats to lose their bearings in the presence of bright light.

We did learn a lot about them, tho'. For instance, did you know that no bat in North America weights more than 2 ounces? Or that each bat female has only one pup per year? Or that there are at least 3 distinct types of bats in NA (based on how much of their tail looks like an actual tail)? Fascinating, non?

Ronnie had two bats with her. Both were in semi-hibernation, as any normal bat should be at this time of year when there are no insects or flowers to speak of, but because she has had both of them for a number of years she was able to coax them to "perform" for us. Harry (or Hairy, we're not sure) is a big brown bat (no, really, that's its actual common name). Big? Well, he weighed about 1-1/2 ounces. Hairy? Definitely. And very soft, even softer than Uilleam's ear hair if you can imagine that.

The other one, Half Pint, was a Mexican Freetail Bat (obviously got across the border before The Fence was built) and weighed around 1/2 ounce, most of it in its ears which were even bigger than Prince Charles'.

Mr. T was suitably impressed. There may be bat boxes in our future.