Last night, a bat got into my office and was flying around in circles. It got tired eventually and landed, very conveniently, in a wastebasket. I put a piece of paper over it and carried it outside. Fly free, little bat!

Then we discovered this morning that it was still in the wastebasket. We dumped it out on the porch but otherwise left it alone — we put a box over it, very loosely, with plenty of gaps for escape, and left it a little bit of water, but otherwise, it’s on it’s own.

All we got for our care was some weird little clicky growls.

We might have a bat ‘problem’. They nest above our garage, and their exit is right above our mailbox, which I’ve noticed is getting covered with a lot of bat poop. I’m not complaining — I’ve always wanted to live in a house full of bats and spiders.

My wife was working in the garden this morning, while I was vegetating in front of the computer. One of the things Mary does is listen and fire up Merlin Bird ID as she works — paying attention to bird song is supposed to be good for you, you know. This is what she identified in our back yard this morning: Chipping Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, House Finch, Black-capped Chickadee, Common Grackle, Rock Pigeon, Grey Catbird, American Crow, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, White-breasted Nuthatch, Red-eyed Vireo, Willow Flycatcher, Alder Flycatcher, Blue Jay, Common Raven, Eastern Towhee, Black-and-White Warbler, Philadelphia Vireo, House Sparrow, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Great Crested Flycatcher, Great Horned Owl, European Starling, Eastern Phoebe, House Wren, American Goldfinch, Downy Woodpecker, Chimney Swift, Dickcissel, American Redstart, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Mourning Dove, Yellow-rumped warbler, Cedar Waxwing, and Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.

I thought she made up “Dickcissel,” but apparently it’s a real bird living in the Midwest. I know we’ve got owls in the neighborhood, and also hawks, since this is clearly a great feeding ground.

This does explain why I’m getting up early every morning — the cacophony is tremendous around here.

Mary caught a centipede in the house, and I was going to take a quick picture of it…but it was way too active. So I had the bright idea of bringing it to the lab, and just carry it outside as I walked in. I had it in a large plastic container that I figured would provide some thermal insulation.

It was not enough.

Before I reached the end of the driveway, it was immobile — that was less than a minute. It took another 3 or 4 minutes to get to work, and it looked dead and frozen. I took a picture anyway. This is a sad, corpselike centipede. Whoops. I was pretty sure I’d killed it with surprising speed. I guess -20°C isn’t healthy for small invertebrates.

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