BajaNomad

Baja Bats

Osprey - 7-6-2005 at 12:07 PM

Bruce, Yank, thanks. Here's more Baja short stories.

The Committee Builds a Bat





It will come as no surprise to you that the dominant religion of the inhabitants of this little Mexican pueblo where I live is Catholicism. I can slip into the last pew at the local Catholic church and still hold slightly different views of how things work with the "Almighty". I can believe in God while leaning toward the theory that, while he was creating all things, he had help. He might have chaired a committee. Most adults and some teens, have, at some time in their lives, served as a member of a committee. You, therefore will fall right in with me when I say that the decisions of committees can be a little strange. This would explain how we got the sloth, the leech and the bat.

The "let's build a bat" meeting must have been a party to remember. They decided that it would be fun to take a mouse and make him fly. It involved some genetic trickery, to make the poor thing so cumbersome on terra firma that it would be forced to catch insects with its paper-thin wings, in flight, at night, with no flashlight. To compensate for the lack of a flashlight they gave the little buggers a strange kind of sonar device to move about in the dark, find bugs. I won't bore you with all the necessary devilment it entails, but this frantic food-gathering system holds danger for more than tiny, hapless bugs.

My little Mexican house does not have air conditioning. The power supply in this part of the pueblo is still not sufficient to run air conditioners. In the summer months it is necessary to leave all the doors and windows open for the breeze. There are no screen doors or windows and each room is equipped with a plain but powerful ceiling fan. It is only with these fans that my wife and I are able to live in the house during the steamy summer months in the tropics.


My bedroom window is large and faces the sea. Lately several bats have flown through the window, hit the fan blades and were flung, at great speed, against the wall or floor of my small room, never to fly again. While my friends discount my theories concerning suicide or pure rage against the committee, they all agree the bats' abilities to avoid the fan, have been impaired by rabies. Each summer night, just before I fall into sleepyland, I try to guess at the probabilities of being hit by one of these poor flying mice. For you actuarial types the fan is 56 inches across, rotates at about 250 RPM, the room is 8Xl4Xl3 feet and the bats are mouse-sized.

At this writing the count is 28 dead, one just inches from my shoulder on the pillow. It is safer for me during the monsoon season. Luis Enrique, my camping campadre, on a recent sleeping-on-the-ground trip to San Evaristo, a snug little harbor north of La Paz, told me the rains kill rabid animals (a mythical twist on hydrophobia I suppose). He firmly stuck to his story that the reason he pulled his T shirt up over his head during the night was to thwart the advances of any skunks in the area, rabid or otherwise, that are inexorably drawn to human breathing.

I once saw a cryptic license plate on an old truck that read "Retirement is not for sissies". My bravado (read stupidity) at being able to fall asleep, in that room, night after night, while awaiting the painful and gruesome death which surely would follow being struck in the eye by a dying rabid bat at about 45MPH, is bold testimony to the wisdom of the plate's author. When we have visitors from the States, they sleep in my bedroom and I take the other bed in my wife's bedroom. She advises me to warn them about the bat problem, but, so far, for capricious reasons of my own, I have kept the promise of surprise in the night to myself. It turns out the bumper sticker should be "Retirement is not for sissies (or their guests)" but not many bumpers are long enough for the whole message.

My wife is beginning to catch on when Luis and I start to chuckle when I learn we are expecting house guests -- she immediately turns the T.V. channel to the weather station, looking for any hint of rain.

vandenberg - 7-6-2005 at 02:01 PM

Hi fishhawk,
I have had quite a few bats fly into our outdoor ceiling fans here in Loreto. I always thought that it had something to do with a magnetic field the motor puts out and disorient the " flying mouse ",as you call them.

Osprey - 7-6-2005 at 02:17 PM

Van, thanks for the post. Time for a P.S.S.:
1. I think the bats think the fan sound is a swarm of insects
2. I thought my pal was into myths about skunks being drawn to human breathing but they account, each year, for more deaths in Mexico than the bites of snakes
3. I wrote the story in 1999 -- after bat # 36 died I learned from my Mexican neighbors to put a long branch of pitahaya cactus in the window -- no more bat deaths now.

Try a Batminton racket!

jrbaja - 7-6-2005 at 04:39 PM

They work great for those giant bees down there and with an established point system, it can be quite entertaining!:lol:

I sure hope that book is coming along and you are catching fish!

Eli - 7-6-2005 at 05:18 PM

Another enjoyable read, thanks Osprey.

The good news about if you ever do have to do the Rabies vaccanation business, it is only 3 shots to the rump with a normal size needle now.

I know because I had a sweet little kitten, only a few months and change old, that went rounds with rabid skunk in our back yard. The tiny little dear actually killed the skunk, but alas became infected in the process. As she scratched me on her way to her demise, it was felt that I best take precaution, and so I did. It didn't hurt no how, but loosing the kitty sure did.

histoplasmosis what?

yankeeirishman - 7-6-2005 at 08:09 PM

The other disease is histoplasmosis, which is caused by a fungus, Histoplasma capsulatum. This fungus lives in soil enriched by bird or bat droppings. IF you live in a moist area.

Hey?be careful picking up them fan beated Bats in your room! Wear gloves! Oh...what's for dinner tonight?

The Words are Flying from this Post...

lindsay - 7-12-2005 at 10:03 PM

OK, I was trying to be clever in the title and make the bat connection...Osprey, I read this over the weekend and the snake post too, both share vivid experiences that are skillfully detailed by you. I can imagine the rooms in your house all opened up. My friend's Mulege palapa where I lived for part of my first year there was a similar scene with 4 huge palapa side windows that would open up the sides of the home's main, circular living area. No screens and a high, pointed palapa roof for the bats to enjoy at night.

Living there, I got used to their frantic fly-bys inside the palapa and it was interesting how being in Mulege introduced me to many creatures that were the subject of fear from afar cultivated by childhood nightmares, bad horror movies and other distant influences.

Now, my new neighbors in nature were making me part of their own brand of reality show..."La gringa guera en mi casa". I'm sure it was fun too break me in and fortunately due to working with the high school kids at the museum, I got to meet a group of professionals whose careers centered on studying and preserving many a Baja creature. One such pro who helped me get to know the "neighbors" firsthand was a zoologist from the San Diego Zoo and SD Natural History Museum, Scott, aka Batman, Snakeman, Monkeyman....you can see the aliases keep changing depending on which creature he was working with on a given day. So, Scott comes through Mulege to donate some time training the high school kids on the area's animals and by the time he leaves, we feel like we've been on an episode of National Geographic or Animal Planet.

So, all the childhood fears and apprehensions of the bat, snake and spider world have to be suspended when you're hanging with pro nature boy. I always pride myself on never being the type to run, screaming or freak out at the sight of any of the above animals but it's not like I'm actively seeking them out either. With Scott, we're going to be actively seeking them out so I have to be the "chill" participant...no getting freaked.

Our first adventure with Scott takes us walking up a wash behind my friend's palapa at the front of the Bay of Concepcion. We carry brand new white paint-sized buckets, Scott has a shovel, very thin mesh netting, some mini-posts that look about as thick as a chopsticks and some other pro nature boy accessories. We are out to set traps with the buckets and hopefully get some snakes and lizards for the students to observe and learn about then release back into the desert. Educationally, this little adventure will make them better informed guides in the museum but in the back of my mind I'm imagining snakes flipping out of the bucket or doing some ninja, slow-motion strike at me. But, I remember my promise...be cool, don't let them see you sweat or freak.

So, before dusk we dig and set the buckets in their holes, watch Scott set up the thin mesh netting, almost like a ping-pong net that keeps on going for about ten feet, supported by the chopstick posts tied to each end of the net. This net, I learn, will guide our slithering friends towards the bucket or send a lizard down along the side of the net until it realizes there are snacks at the bottom of the bucket. We will finish setting the buckets with square plywood tops. They do not cover the bucket's opening but provide an elevated roof of shade and ventilation for whatever creature ventures in for a visit.

In the early morning before the heat comes and the sun is just over the Bay, we go to check the buckets. Scott builds up the adrenaline by reminding us that we will tap gently on the side of the buckets to see if any rattlesnacks may be present but it's not 100% that we will get a warning. Then, we are told to slowly pull the plywood cover from the top side toward our body and not from the bottom side away from us. Again, this point adds to the adrenaline pump as this detail is to ensure that if any of our visitors leap or strike out at the plywood we will not be in the way...so to speak.

Well, in the end there were no poisonous snakes lurking but some beautifully colored ones and some lizards that many of the students knew from around their neighborhoods. All made their way back into the desert later that morning and we had the pleasure to be part of a wonderful nature show...no cable or satellite dish needed.

I have to wrap it up now but Osprey also has a great piece on snakes that includes excellent descriptions of our slithering Baja neighbors...no, not the ones that take your last beer or break your beach chair

Anyway, I will post another Scott as Batman story later this week about when he took the students and I on another face your fears adventure in a Mulege "Bat Cave". :O