Today when I got to work I was walking around and I saw this little brown lump on the floor next to the wall in a hallway. At first I thought it was a dead mouse, but when I got close to it, it turned its head and squawked at me - a little brown bat! I carefully scooped it up in a paper towel and took it out to my pickup, where I put it in the back which is covered with a canopy. I partially covered it with a small towel and went back inside. I brought out a small lid with some water in it and placed the water next to the towel. A few hours later I brought out a box to place it in, but by that time it had flown or climbed up onto the carpeted wall of the canopy, and was fast asleep. By the end of the day it was still hanging there, so I carefully drove home and took some pictures:
With my thumbnail for scale - the bat is quite small!
I took some video as well, which shows it really close up. I'll post that later.
I left my truck outside and opened the back, and put the lid of water below the bat on the box so it can climb down to drink. Hopefully it will wake up and fly off tonight. As of 8:30 PM it was still there so maybe it is exhausted from its experience inside the building? Or maybe it is just too cold to be active. Or maybe it is sick
. If it is still there in the morning I'll put it in the box so it doesn't have to ride around with me
This is the closest I have gotten to a live bat, it is great to be able to see one up close!
