Our Little Brown Otises

[What follows is a shameless plug for a favorite animal of mine]

You will notice that I have added another button to my links "Adopt a Bat". This will link you to Bat Conservation International.
BCI does wonderful things in the world of bat conservation and education all over the world. I won't go into my limited knowledge of bats, instead if you are interested, visit them. Adopt a bat if you wish. We did.

After reading Diane Ackerman's The Moon by Whale Light I fell in love with bats. Living for so many years in San Francisco I disparaged of ever seeing a bat out side a zoo. Then I moved to the Santa Cruz Mountains. One spring evening while Husband and I were sitting on our deck, we saw a bird swoop by, its flight pattern was erratic, zig zagy (? should be a word if it isn't), and then it disappeared. And then came another, and another and another. Slowly it dawned on me that these were not birds, but bats! In my own back yard! I wrote to BCI describing the flight pattern of my "birds", their approximate size, and where we live. BCI wrote back to tell us that we share our home with California Brown Bats (Myotis Californicus), or as we like to call them Our Little Brown Otises.

They are back. It has been a wet spring, so not as many of them are out yet as in past years, but they are back! Quietly eating up mosquitoes and other flighty, bitey night bugs.

Go Bats! Bats are cool!

There will be knitting this evening.