Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted this wild colony for years. Hi Everyone! I have some really sad news. Tinybat passed away this week. He was a wonderful little guy and I’ll miss him terribly. The people at Save Lucy are really, really sad because he was a great bat. I am going to miss his poetry. I wonder if Freda or Quinn would be willing to learn to type so we can have some more bat poetry. Tinybat was a little tri-colored bat. He was small even for them. His wings had been hurting lately because he had arthritis in them. The people at Save Lucy did everything they could to keep Tinybat healthy and comfortable, but little Tinybat didn’t make it. He had been an education bat for a long time because he couldn’t fly well enough to be released into the wild. Save Lucy has another tri-colored bat named Fierce. Fierce and Tinybat were the best of bat-friends and Fierce seems very sad now. I thought it would be nice to repost Tinybat’s very first poem. I’ll miss you Tinybat! Mealworms A crunchy little mealworm That’s what I will eat A crunchy little mealworm Sweet, sweet, sweet In memory of Tinybat
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Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted this wild colony for years. Hi Everyone! I would like to let you all know about the newest bat at Save Lucy. She is an adorable Gray Bat (Myotis grisescens) with a very bad joint injury in her wing. Gray Bats are federally endangered bats who live in caves. I don’t think there are very many of them in Virginia, so this little girl is very special. Her injury is very serious and they aren’t sure she’ll completely recover. If she doesn’t recover, she’ll stay with the bats at Save Lucy. I hope all the other little bats welcome her into their group.
The North American Society for Bat Research (NASBR) is offering a teachers workshop at its annual meeting in Albany, NY on Saturday, October 26. Please see the flyer below for registration information. We’re presenting, as well as many other bat experts. Please share with any New York teachers you know!
Hi Everyone! HAPPY BAT APPRECIATION MONTH!!! October is the month to celebrate all things batty. Here are a few ideas of some things you could do. You could make bat cookies. All you need is a bat shaped cookie cutter. You could make bat cupcakes. These are really cute: Or you could do a bat craft. This one is adorable: You can do something special for BAT WEEK (Oct 26—Nov 1) like ask your teacher to watch the Edubat Program on October 29, check out the Save the Bats project , or donate a drawing or poem to Save Lucy’s I Care Project . You could go out and look for bats. Check out this video to hear bats’ ultrasonic songs! You could even go around talking with a Transylvanian accent. I’m sure there are millions of other ways to celebrate. Have fun thinking up some more.
Just in time for Bat Week, please join us for Project EduBat, a collaborative effort to bring bats to the classroom. “This free broadcast will feature newly developed bat activities, resources, lesson plans, and educational trunks that will be available across the country for your use! Help make science come alive for your students, volunteers, and others. Inspire them to make a difference.” Tune in October 29th at 2pm ET. Find the viewing details here
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted this wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I found an interesting bit of information. Apparently the University of Ontario led study on the way bats echolocate. The Robarts Research Institute in London, Ontario collected 3D scans of the internal anatomy of 26 different bats that represented 11 different evolutionary lineages. The pictures allowed the researchers to identify a bone that connects the larynx to the bones that surround and support the eardrum of the bats. Some kinds of bats use their larynx to generate echolocation signals. Other types of bats use tongue clicks to echolocate. This special little observation makes it possible to distinguish bats that produce echolocation signals with their larynx from bats that do not echolocate and those that use tongue clicks. Scientists who study the timing and the origin of flight and echolocation in bat evolution will be able to use this discovery when they study fossils of bats. Isn’t that cool! I think it is. You can read an article about the study here. Please enjoy this video of a bat echolocating in slow motion!
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted this wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I read an article about a place in Shorewood, IL. They have a colony of big brown bats that they are taking care of. Every summer the bats come back and every summer the bats startle people when they wake up and start flying around. So the awesome people at the Hammel Woods nature preserve have decided to do something about it. They say that it’s the humans who disturb the bats’ daytime slumber with noise and smoke from picnic barbecues. To solve the problem, the preserve officials have built a cozy “condo” for the bats that live there. This condo is awesome. It is about 12 feet above the ground and looks like a giant birdhouse. It has several rows of little crevices for the bats to hang out in during the day. The condo is so big that it can hold up to 250 big brown bats! They hope that the bats will decide the new condo is a better home than their old shelter. It should keep them nice and toasty warm and comfy. If you want to read the article, you can see it here .
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted this wild colony for years. Hi Everyone! I thought it would be nice to have a bonus blog this weekend. Yesterday was Bat Fest and it was a lot of fun. It was nice to see some of the people who read my blog. It was especially nice to meet TMC. I just want to say hi to him and I loved his bat costume! Bat Fest was a great opportunity to learn about bats. Everyone learned about how awesome bats are and why we need them. I really loved seeing a video of a bat catching a moth. The video showed how a bat does a somersault in the air so it can wrap around the moth. We also got to meet Buzz for his public debut. His is a really cute big brown bat who weighs 20 grams. He did a really good job for his first public performance. Tinybat also made an appearance for the second talk and got to eat a lot of yummy mealworms. It was fun to go outside and look for bats with the bat detector. We were very lucky and found a few flying around the parking lot. They were happily catching bugs. I took some pictures of Bat Fest. I hope you like them. Thank you to everyone who came out to meet the bats and learn about them. I hope you all had fun. (We want to thank the staff and volunteers of Hidden Oaks Nature Center, the volunteers from other organizations, Keith and Connor from […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted this wild colony for years. Hi Everyone! A lot is happening in the bat world and some of it is pretty funny. First, the serious stuff. There was a Bat Blitz last weekend in Annandale, VA. They went out to try to catch some bats. They only caught one before they had to stop because of the weather. The project lead was a bat biologist who has a blog that you can read here. He is an awesome photographer and I’m sure you’ll love his stuff! More news from last weekend is that little Freda flew for the very first time! She flew around for a little while and then had to go back inside because the weather was not cooperating again. Now for the funny stuff. I found this story on the internet Thursday. Thank you Yahoo News! Apparently a bat in Tennessee wants to be a news anchor. Too bad the humans on the set didn’t want to give up their jobs. I think you’ll like this. I laughed pretty hard. Last, but not least, don’t forget about Bat Fest Annandale tonight! I hope the bats and I will see some of you there. I’ll blog all about it.