Today is Bat Appreciation Day. Not the baseball kind, the flappy winged kind. I'm not sure how much I appreciate bats but I have had a few close encounters with them. I have seen the clouds of bats flying out of Carlsbad Caverns at sunset and that was very impressive. When we lived in Ohio a bat got in the house and was zipping around when I went downstairs to let the dogs out early in the morning. It was a clever bat though and headed for the great outdoors as soon as I opened the door, so nothing scary there. Bats do really eat lots and lots of nasty insects so some cities encourage them to hang around. For instance Sidney, Australia. And they have really big bats. We stayed at a nice hotel there. Our room was on the second floor. We had been told that big bats hung in the trees but not to worry, they wouldn't bite, and they didn't. However, at three o'clock in the morning I was awakened by the most incredible din. A loud squealing, chattering noise that went on and on. I looked out the window and saw by the light of a nearby street light about a billion bats (well that might be a slight exaggeration) hanging from every branch of a tree right outside our window. They were hanging from every branch. No Christmas tree has ever been so thoroughly decorated. After about a half hour they quieted down and I went back to sleep. Who knows what woke them up? Things are very strange "down under."
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