A Fourth of July Visitor

We had an uninvited guest last evening. I was emptying the dishwasher about 8:30 PM and thinking about heading to bed pretty soon afterwards. As I straightened up to put some dishes in the cabinet, I caught a glimpse of something black out of the corner of my eye. It was about eye-level and at first I thought it was a bird and then quickly thought it looked more like a butterfly. But all black?

By now you may have guessed what it really was...a bat! It settled gently to the kitchen floor a few feet from me and I yelled to Andy who was in the basement. He came up and saw it before returning to the basement for a container to throw over it. I headed down the hall to Emily's room and closed the door. I wish I had just tossed a dish towel over the thing before that though, because when Andy came back up the bat was gone. Well, not really gone. Just not on the kitchen floor any more. So he went back downstairs to look up on his computer how to find a bat in your house. Emily did the same thing in her room. Then the two of them went bat-hunting while Charlie and I hunkered down in Emily's room and read a bit.

With flashlights in hand and a container to throw over it (as well as a fishing net in case it flew), they started searching. Emily found it under the valance over the doors to the screen porch chittering away. The two of them moved in and captured it, took it outdoors and set it on the ground. It flew away, hopefully to eat some more mosquitoes. Case closed and we all went to bed in peace...Crystal Lake's Fourth of July fireworks are scheduled for tonight.