A few years ago, I lived in a small cabin on the edge of a forest. As my time in the cabin continued, I became more and more comfortable with the rhythms of daylight, and even though I was spending long hours in the working world, I eventually enjoyed spending many evenings when I was at home in the near darkness. One visitor I came to recognize had an even stronger affinity for the dark, or at least had far better skills to navigate in it. On warmer evenings, as I might be carefully making my way along up a path to the front door, or standing for a moment, I would be surprised by the hum of a small animal rushing over my shoulder, so fast I would never quite make out its shape until I could catch it against the glow of the night sky. This was of course one of the many bat species in our valley, no doubt using my ability to attract insects to help it find a meal.

Of some approximately 900 species and 180 genera of bats, there are apparently some thirteen species that live in our valley. All belong to the order of mammals known as Chiroptera, and in our area all are from one suborder called Microchiroptera, the insectivorous bats, or, those that eat insects. Our bats can sometimes eat as many as 600 insects an hour per bat. Given that they are also relatively clean, and are no more likely to carry disease than other wildlife, it is little wonder that people who learn about bats often start looking to find ways to keep them nearby.

Chiroptera means "hand wing", and it is in this feature that the only mammals that can truly fly gained their advantage. If you can imagine your arms outstretched, and your fingers reaching down or outward until they are perhaps as long as your arms, and your skin grown out to fill in the spaces between your head, arms, outstretched fingers, and your legs (and your tail, if you still had one), you might begin to understand why these animals are actually able to fly, and why they have such amazing agility. Every movement of your "finger" would change the airfoil of a wing, and a twist of several fingers could send you in a quick turn as acrobatic as any Olympic gymnast. In this way, many bats can catch even nimble insects in flight while sailing easily over your shoulder without touching you. While all bats can see, and often quite well, the insect eating bats have an adaptation that dolphins, whales and some shrews and birds have also gained, "echolocation". They can send out clicks of high frequency sound and hear the echo of that sound to tell the size, distance and even the relative motion of objects around themÑa handy adaptation to find the exact location of insect prey. The hearing of a local bat, the Pallid Bat, Antrozous pallidus, is refined to differentiate between crawling things, so that it can distinguish the walk of a favorite meal, a Jerusalem Cricket (Potato Bug) or a scorpion from several feet away.

Most bats are long-lived in our area, some as long as 31 years, and because they typically give birth to only one pup per year, their numbers are easily threatened. They are also very vulnerable to insecticides because concentrations of these toxins from the insects they eat build up in their fat, and can weaken or kill them while they use the fat to stay alive during hibernation or torpor, a state of low activity and lowered metabolism that many warm blooded animals use to conserve energy in winter. For these reasons, and especially because of human destruction of bats due to misconceptions about them, bat populations are in serious decline in many species. Several species are endangered or threatened, and our own Pallid Bat is a species of special concern.

Many people are changing their old misconceptions about bats, and several people have formed groups to promote their preservation. Christine Scott, of the California Bat Conservation Fund consults locally with Kenwood's Wildlife Center and has many fascinating things to say about them. She is willing to give talks in our area and can be reached at Box 1502, Ross, CA, 95957. If you find a bat in your home or a sick or injured bat, leave it alone and call the Wildlife Center at 575-1000.