Catch That Bat! (6 page)

‘I know,’ Sophie replied. ‘We spend so much time in the zoo that we forget about all the animals that live right here.’

‘Where are they though?’ Tom said. ‘I can’t pick them out.’

They both shone their torches on to the water and then up into the trees behind them, but they couldn’t see any bats.

There was another series of squeaks.

‘Over there by the bridge,’ said Sophie.

They could see dark black shapes swooping through the air about fifty metres ahead of them. It wasn’t pitch black yet, so the bats were still visible against the deep blue of the evening sky.

‘They look like birds from here,’ said Tom.

‘Let’s get closer,’ said Sophie.

They walked further along the towpath, keeping the red light of their torches trained on the cloud of bats.

‘They must be feeding on the midges that gather under the bridge,’ said Sophie.

‘Look at that one,’ whispered Tom.

He pointed at a bat that was heading in their direction. It was darting up and down, and then hovering in mid-air.

‘It must be hunting a moth,’ said Sophie.

‘So why can’t it just catch the moth and eat it?’ Tom asked.

‘According to that book I was reading, some moths have evolved a defence mechanism,’ said Sophie. ‘They emit a high-pitched sound that confuses bats. Messes with their echolocation.’

‘So what happens?’ Tom asked.

‘Let’s watch. Maybe we’ll find out,’ Sophie said.

The bat was still hovering in mid-air. Tom and Sophie trained their torches on the bat and saw a moth fluttering just in front of it. The bat jerked upward, the moth flapped backwards, the bat darted forward, the moth fluttered sideways, the bat flew in a clockwise circle, the moth flew in an anticlockwise circle. All of this happened in a split second.

‘Wow,’ whispered Tom.

The bat suddenly jutted its legs out and swooped forward.

‘He caught it,’ said Sophie.

The bat darted off, crunching the moth in his jaws.

‘So the bat won that one,’ Tom said. ‘Whoa, look at those ones over there.’ He swept his torch back across to the group of bats by the bridge.

‘It’s like they’re dive-bombing,’ he said.

Two or three of the bats were flying above the water, getting lower and lower, until finally they skimmed the surface of the canal and took off again.

‘I bet they’re catching all those insects that hover just above the water,’ said Sophie.

‘But how come the bats never land in the canal?’

‘Maybe their squeaks bounce off the water,’ said Sophie, ‘so they know when to take off again.’

They shone their torches on a bat that was starting to swoop down towards the water, following it with their beams.

As it skimmed across the surface of the canal, it seemed to catch one insect with its wing and pass it into its mouth, crunching it up with its jaws. But, at the same time, a larger insect disappeared into the bat’s tail.

‘Did you see that?’ Sophie asked.

Tom nodded, puzzled.

Another bat swooped down from the bridge. It caught a midge with its claws and passed it into its mouth. But a second insect seemed to be scooped up by the bat’s tail.

‘What do you think it’s doing?’ Tom asked.

‘Keeping some food for later?’ Sophie suggested. ‘But I can’t see how.’

‘Let’s ask Grandad about it when we get back,’ Tom said.

‘What are you asking Grandad?’ said a voice behind them.

They turned around and saw their grandad standing behind them.

‘I’ve come to round you both up,’ he said. ‘It’s half past eight already.’

‘It can’t be,’ said Sophie. ‘We got here at seven.’

‘You’ve been watching bats for an hour and a half,’ said Grandad.

‘We can’t have been,’ said Tom. ‘That’s impossible.’

‘Time flies when you’re watching bats,’ said Grandad with a smile. ‘You end up getting drawn into their world. They’re great hunters.’

Tom asked Grandad about the bats that had skimmed across the surface of the canal, catching some insects with their wings and seeming to scoop up others with their tails.

‘They’ll be Daubenton’s,’ said Grandad, ‘very clever bats. They have a pouch under their tails. They can use it to sweep up prey. Also to store anything they catch.’

‘So what you’re saying is,’ Tom said, ‘they catch moths with their bottoms.’

‘That’s it,’ said Grandad with a smile.

He led them back along the towpath towards
The Ark
.

‘The bats we saw looked like adults,’ said Sophie. ‘Are there no baby bats around at the moment?’

‘Well, they won’t be flying anywhere yet,’ said Grandad, ‘but yes, springtime is usually when bats start having their kits. They wake up from hibernation, the females find a maternity roost and then start having babies shortly afterwards.’

‘That’s pretty quick, isn’t it?’ Sophie said.

‘Well, one other thing that some bats do is mate before they hibernate,’ said Grandad, ‘so it’s all out of the way. Then they delay getting pregnant while they’re hibernating. Everything in their body completely stops. When they wake up, things kick off again and the baby bat starts growing inside its mother.’

‘That’s amazing,’ said Sophie.

‘So as well as flying, and echolocating, and sleeping upside down, they can decide when to have a baby,’ said Tom.

Grandad nodded. ‘It must be splendid being a bat!’

Chapter 6

All that week at school, neither Tom nor Sophie could concentrate. Tom spent hours drawing pictures of different kinds of bats in the back of his maths book. Sophie nearly got caught secretly reading her
Junior Bat Spotter’s Guide
under the table in a history lesson.

Each evening, they couldn’t wait for it to get dark so they could go back to the towpath and pick out bats with their torches, whispering about what they could see. By Friday, they had become experts at spotting bats, even at long distances.

‘Look at that one!’ exclaimed Sophie.

She trained the beam of her torch on a bat that was flapping away from the canal.

‘Can you see it?’ Sophie said. ‘On its back?’

Tom nodded. It was a baby bat, clinging on to its mother’s back with its tiny claws.

They watched the mother and baby as they flew off over the trees.

‘There’s another one,’ said Sophie. ‘Look.’

Another bat with a small black shape on its back sped across the sky. Then another.

‘What do you think they’re doing?’ Tom asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sophie. ‘I read in my book that sometimes bats move house. They all decide to leave one roost and find another one. Maybe that’s what they’re doing.’

Within seconds, the sky above their head was full of squeaking, flapping, fluttering bats. Tom and Sophie shone their torches straight up and stared.

Soon it was quieter again. A few bats were still hovering under the bridge, but there was no sign of the others.

‘Will they come back?’ Tom asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sophie.

‘Do you think there are bats in other parts of the marina?’ asked Tom.

‘Let’s find out,’ said Sophie.

They turned to leave.

‘I know they’ve gone,’ Tom said. ‘but it’s like I can still hear one of them squeaking.’

‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ Sophie said, ‘but it’s not coming from the sky.’

‘So where is it coming from?’ Tom asked.

They both listened as hard as they could.

‘Let’s close our eyes,’ said Tom. ‘It works for bats.’

They both closed their eyes tight and concentrated on the sounds. The night air was cold on their faces.

They picked out the water lapping the bank in front of them, the trees rustling behind them, the barges creaking further up the canal, the quiet murmur of cars on the street beyond.

‘Wow,’ said Sophie, her eyes still scrunched up. ‘It does actually help.’

‘There it is!’ exclaimed Tom, holding up his finger. He kept his eyes closed and took a step towards the sound. He stopped and listened again. He took another step.

Seconds later, they were crouching down, looking at a small brown creature squirming in a patch of grass. It was stabbing the ground with its wings, trying to propel itself forward.

‘It’s a baby bat,’ Tom said.

‘Maybe it fell off its mum,’ said Sophie.

‘Do you think she’ll come back for it?’

‘Not with us here,’ said Sophie. ‘Come on, we’d better keep an eye on it from a safe distance.’

They waited behind a nearby tree for half an hour, peering out every minute or so. The mother bat did not return.

‘It’s past eight. We have to go home,’ said Tom.

‘Five more minutes,’ said Sophie.

But still the mother bat didn’t come.

‘OK, we’re taking him with us,’ said Sophie.

‘Hang on,’ said Tom, grabbing her arm. ‘Don’t you remember the keeper in the fruit bat enclosure. She had special gloves on.’