Bats in the belfry

I was awakened this morning around one-thirty. I heard faint muffled noises. It was as if someone was walking up the stairs very, very slowly. The stairs are lined with cardboard right now to protect them until they're finished. At first I thought it was Callie trying to come up. Then I thought it was Ken. But why take one step every ten seconds? And he was in bed, anyway.

Light patterns on the ceiling of a cave gallery at the Monmousseau winery.

I got up and checked the stairwell. Empty. I went downstairs to find Callie sleeping. I even ventured down to see if Bertie was in the garage; he was still out gallivanting (I'll have to speak to him about that). I went back to bed convinced that I was hearing things. I was almost asleep when I heard the noise again. I got up to look, but it stopped, so I went back toward the bed. Then I felt a little breeze as something flew past my head. That's a pretty fast moth, I thought. I turned the light on and there it was. A bat was in the room.

It flew around the room and landed on a beam. Then it took off and did the same again. The noise I was hearing was the bat landing on the beam and repositioning itself for takeoff. By this time Ken was awake and was opening the windows wide as I was trying to guide the bat toward them. I started swinging a tee-shirt around to help move the bat in the right direction.

Then I hit him. Plop. He hit the floor. I scooped him up with the tee-shirt and tossed him out the window. But he didn't fly. Splat. I had visions of his vampire cousins coming for me in the night. But I managed to fall asleep and nearly forgot about him.

We found him dead on the balcony below the window this morning. Out of respect, I didn't take any photos before I disposed of the body. Poor little guy.