Bats!

Over the weekend, Rachel and I joined the Brubachers and some other friends on a little camping excursion in Kasanka National Park.  Besides being home to baboons, man birds, hundreds of puku (a smallish type of antelope), hippos, and an elusive herd of elephants, Kasanka is host to the world’s largest annual mammal migration.  And what mammals are these, you ask?  Bats.

Kasanka holds a unique geographical position, occupying the borderland between the jungles of central Africa and the savannas of eastern and southern Africa.  Every year, somewhere between eight and ten million fruit bats come from all over the Congo basin – traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles – to spend a couple of months in this unlikely resort.  No one is quite sure why they come here.  To be sure, there are many fruit trees here from which to pick, but that is true of many places all over Africa.  They don’t come here to breed – they do that in their various home bases at a different time of the year.  As far as anyone can tell, they make this yearly journey for the sheer spectacle of it.

Rachel and I were hesitant to come.  Millions of bats in close proximity?  Really?  Millions of rodents with leathery wings buzzing around our heads?  But the invitation was extended, and we’re not ones to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, especially if it is one that will provide us with years of unassailable bragging rights.  So we went. 

It was a surreal experience.  As bats are nocturnal creatures, we made our way to the viewing grounds towards evening.  Standing in a clearing about a kilometer from the stand of trees where these millions of creatures sleep through the day, we set up our cameras and waited.  As the sun sank and the pale light gave way to a heavy blue twilight, a black cloud could be seen rising from the tree line.  As the cloud rose, it spread, but with more and more bats following, the cloud hardly thinned.  Soon the bats were flying over us, uncounted black darts thirty feet above our heads.  This flurry continued unabated for about an hour before it finally dissipated and we left for camp.  These bats would spend the night in whatever grove or glade they fancied, then be back in the same stand of trees by daybreak, to start it all over again.

For being a furry hoard out of some unsettling nightmare, it was actually sublimely beautiful.  Which is not how I would describe the experience we had upon returning home.

Allow me to provide a little background: Before we arrived in Samfya two months ago, other occupants claimed the space that we now call home.  They are – you guessed it! – bats.  Though smaller than the fruit bats we encountered in Kasanka, they are considerably less pleasant.  While the fruit bats possess a rather fox-like countenance, our unwelcome roommates look like mice.  The fruit bats, viewed from a distance, command a certain respect.  Our bats just give me the heebie-jeebies.

Unpleasant as they are, the bats in our home have been kind enough to stay out of sight.  Our house is an A-frame construction, with a corrugated tin roof and panels of plywood affixed to the interior to serve as a ceiling.  It is between these layers that the bats have settled down.  We hear them squeaking and chattering and scratching around, but they stayed out of our way.  Until last weekend.

At some point during our absence, the bats found a way to get into the house.  As we were emptying our camping pack and making dinner on Sunday night, we heard that old familiar squeaking.  But this time it sounded much nearer than usual.  I looked to see a bat hanging on a curtain behind the chair where Rachel sat.  I told her to get up slowly and go into the bedroom.  I got the nearest weapon I could find – a wide shop broom – and advanced.  I knocked it down from the curtain and swept it out of the house.  The next bat appeared later that evening as a blur whizzing past our heads.  Rachel took cover again, and I swatted at the little monster as it made careening circles about the room.  One swipe finally connected, and this bat I also disposed of quickly. 

The infiltrations continued on Monday and Tuesday, waking us up in the middle of the night as another bat would come into the house and dart around in desperate laps.  I continued to do battle with the aid of my trusty weapon: the Broom of Doom!  The Reaper’s Sweeper!  The Dreaded Bat Bat!  To be sure they were dead, but to avoid bloodshed, I ended up sweeping them into a bucket where I drowned them.  If bats give me the heebie-jeebies, then watching a bat drown makes me sick to my stomach.  It was not a pleasant start to the week.

I left the office early Wednesday afternoon to spend some time sealing up any remaining cracks in the house.  It was meticulous work, because these bats can squeeze through tiny spaces.  Lumber and putty seemed to do the trick, however; that night we had our first unbroken sleep in four days.  And no bats.  Good grief.

I feel grateful to have been able to witness one of nature’s most mysterious and glorious events, and even more grateful to be able to go inside and shut it out completely.  Now, where did that pesticide go?