Dave Taft When I was growing up in Brooklyn, bats were common. They roosted in abandoned homes, in attics, in little-used garages or behind decorative window shutters in both the most affluent and the poorest neighborhoods. My summers were filled with bat sightings, as were fall evenings after my homework was done. That bats were familiars, or consorted with the dead, never occurred to me. I only wanted to see one up close.
To make that happen, I used a trick. My brother and I would begin the evening filling our pockets with carefully selected, irregularly shaped stones â€" the best were no larger than half an inch long. These were our insect decoys.
Positioning ourselves in empty lots near street trees or in fields where we had seen bats hunting, we would thumb-flick these stones as high as we could when we spotted one nearby. As the spinning stone reached its maximum height, the bat’s radar would detect the tiny “insect†and sometimes sweep in to investigate.
If we got the timing and the trajectory exactly right, the stone and the bat would intersect at eye level, a great view, illuminated by the city streetlights, and close enough for us to hear the faint flutter of wings. Every now and again, the bat would sweep its wing or tail under to intercept the stone, rejecting it at once as fraudulent.
I am anxious that my daughter may never have the chance to play this harmless game with me. Bats are scarce these days. Since the discovery of white nose syndrome in a New York State cave in 2006, millions of bats have died throughout the Northeast. The disease is caused by a previously unknown fungus (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) that reaches its morbid worst when bats are most susceptible, during their winter hibernation. The highly contagious disease spreads through densely packed, sleeping bats at will.
Though the exact means of death is unknown, infected bats rouse more often in winter, depleting critical energy reserves. The disease may afflict the bats’ brains, or it may simply be starvation, but sick bats occasionally emerge from hibernation to search the bleak February skies for flying insects. In either case, the disease is a death sentence. February’s cold is unforgiving.
In my experience, the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) is the most frequently seen in our area, especially around water, but I have also encountered silver-haired, hoary, Eastern red, and big brown bats in New York City and its vicinity. If you want to get fancier than flinging rocks, join one of several local nature centers or bat conservation groups for an evening foray. Leaders often carry devices that can decipher the bats’ echolocation, since different bat species hunt using different frequencies and cadences â€" many too high-pitched for unaided human ears.
I miss bats. I know I am not the only one. Each Halloween, as the parade of princesses, pirates, bats and black cats gets under way, I wish for better days for these small, furry marvels.
