I was up at 2am again last night, and now I’m really tired. The reason is right here:

That’s my mailbox. It’s located under the eaves of my garage roof, and you might have to look closely to see it, but it’s covered with bat poop. I’ve gone out with a garden hose a few times and cleaned it off, but every night, without fail, a swarm of bats emerges from the voluminous (and unused) storage space above my garage, lightens their load with a quick evacuation, and then flits off to diminish the local mosquito population. From the amount of bat crap we see, I think we’ve got an impressively large colony of bats inhabiting our garage.

That’s fine. I like bats. I’m happy to provide a shelter for the local population, and while I’m not thrilled that they’re voiding their bowels over my mailbox, it’s always over the back half, so it doesn’t interfere with human uses of the mailbox.

But then, every once in a while, a bat somehow finds its way into my house, and they don’t like it. Late last night I heard a scratching and scuffling at the blinds in my bedroom, and then…flutter flutter flutter. I turned on the lights, waking up my wife, who looked up and saw this brown beast running laps around the room, going around and around in circles, with me putting on a robe and running to my office to get my butterfly net.

It was very exciting and a bit chaotic for a while. I was sweeping that net around, mostly missing (bats are agile critters), and banging into ceiling light fixture, which eventually broke and fell to the floor with a crash of breaking glass. Eventually I swished the net just right and captured the bat, which I took out the back door and released.

All that disruption meant we were now fully awake and it took a while to get back to sleep, briefly, because the alarm goes off at 5am so Mary can get to work on time.

I raise spiders and house a swarm of bats. Is my dream of becoming the Addams Family coming true?

Maybe the monarchs are coming back — we spotted a roosting mass of them across the street. Can you count them all?

Also, on a branch just above them, there was a Cooper’s Hawk standing guard.

Earlier this morning, Mary spotted a dark chrysalis near our back door.

This is what it looks like now.

In a few hours, it’ll flutter off to join the wild population here in Morris.

We’ve got a few monarch chrysalides around the house, but we’ve also noticed a lot of mortality among the caterpillars, which is normal. This morning we spotted this caterpillar, motionless and dying, clinging to the side of the house.

There’s something horrible stuck to its side. I don’t know what it is, so I present it to you, all you caterpillar MDs. Any diagnosis?

The Monarchs are here.

It’s been a miserable day, driving in exhausting heat to visit family in St Cloud. But we’re back, and look what we found in the front yard:

In case you don’t recognize it, here’s an older sibling:

Yep, it’s Monarch season again!

I gave Mary a quick lesson in using a real camera this morning. She took a few shots of the flowers she has growing outside our back door.

Tell her she did a good job!

I have a yard full of bird-feeders (set up by my wife, not me), every morning is a cacophony of bird song, and I can look out my window and see flocks of birds hopping and flying all over. If I set foot outside my door and look in their direction…forget about it. Instant panic. Birds go winging off in all directions, and the yard is abruptly vacant. I was quick enough to get this one photo of a stupid bird before it too decided I was a nightmarish, terrifying figure.

Spiders don’t do that. Spiders like me. Birds…bleh.