Yesterday as I was working at tearing apart some dilapidated buildings for building material, I came across an unexpected find. A bat – genus Myotis, I think. Sheltered in one of the grooves of the roofing tin.
It’s always nice to find other folks who appreciate insects as much as I do. There’s enough insects to go around – I’ll not worry about this fellow’s competition. The bat seemed to be in good health, with no sign of White Nose Syndrome, a fungal disease which has decimated North American bats.
White Nose Fungus is native to Europe, but was introduced to eastern North America about 15 years ago, and bat die-offs followed. At first folks thought that a certain European caver’s unwashed gear could be to blame, but now it’s thought that European bats might have spread the plague themselves, after immigrating to this country as stowaways on container ships.
Fortunately, native bats finally seem to be developing resistance to the disease… or rather, most of the susceptible bats have died, and the ones remaining tend to be of resistant stock.
Along with the bat were an abundance of leaf-footed bugs and paper wasps which attempted to overwinter with the roof as shelter. While some insects may have overwintered here successfully, the only ones remaining are those who didn’t quite manage.
The bat skittered away from the camera, and seemed to be trying to hiss at me, though I couldn’t quite hear the vocalizations. Then it winged away to take shelter in a nearby Douglas Fir, shortly before hail encouraged me to wrap up my roof demolition.
I’ll hope to see them again later this summer, diving for mosquitoes and mayflies in the gathering dusk.
Trego's Mountain Ear 