We live out in the middle of the prairie. There’s no natural water for miles in any direction, and there isn’t a tree taller than me as far as the eye can see.
Despite that, my youngest son wanted to build a bat house for his 4-H project this year. I didn’t see the harm in building it, but I also didn’t see any need to get it mounted outside anytime soon. Because of where we live, I figured it would never have any residents.
But last weekend, Logan woke up early one morning and went out to the playhouse we’ve been building. He came running in after only a couple of minutes, shouting that he’d found a bat living in one of the crevices in the playhouse. I figured if I went out to see, the bat would have miraculously flown away before I got there. But sure enough, I climbed up the ladder, looked into the cranny Logan pointed out, and right there in the shadows was a little brown bat.
It made me wonder how many other times Logan wasn’t just telling stories when he came in reporting wildlife roaming through our property. After finding the bat where he said he’d seen it, I got to thinking maybe he wasn’t seeing things when he saw the coyote trotting through the yard. Or the fox slinking through the windbreak. The mountain lion lounging on the roof or the grizzly bear drinking out of the horse trough are still a little harder to believe, but who knows?
Now that I know there really are bats in the area, I think I’ll get to work a little quicker getting that bat house installed. It would be nice to have some winged mammals patrolling the skies, thinning out the mosquito flocks.
And next time Logan says he sees some wild animal lurking on the place, I’ll be a little more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt.
