Going Batty

Little brown bat. (I cannot claim credit for this photo, unless copying an image off the internet counts!)

We were incredibly blessed to have spent the past week in the north woods of Maine at Buckhorn Camps (Buckhorn Camps – Experience the Maine Tradition). My family has vacationed at similar places ever since I was a small child. The Maine woods are the perfect setting for our kind of getaway — away from the noise, the chaos, the worries, the news of the wider world. Buckhorn was just perfect . . . a simple cabin tucked in under the trees, a delicious dinner provided at the main lodge each evening (which made it a true vacation for me), the call of the loon and the splash of the beaver’s tail audible and sometimes visible from our porch, and plenty of time and ways to relax. The Buckhorn proprietors, Katy Wood and Bud Utecht, made us welcome and comfortable. We could not have asked for a more perfect vacation.

Oh, did I mention getting away from the news? Okay, so last week was definitely a week full of news, which made it either a good one or a bad one to miss, depending on one’s perspective. We received updates only spasmodically. But we were smart enough to figure out things in America had turned upside down with President Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign and Vice President Harris’s meteoric rise to rock star status and her unification of the Democrats. But I am not here to talk about that.

I am really here to talk about bats.

Specifically little brown bats, a species that became endangered when (as far as anyone can figure) spelunkers brought the fungus that causes white nose syndrome from Europe to America on the bottoms of their shoes. White nose syndrome, first detected in the U. S. in 2006 (White-Nose Syndrome (whitenosesyndrome.org), kills bats. The little brown bat population has been in decline ever since.

But it turns out that a healthy maternal colony of little brown bats is ensconced — guess where? Under the eaves of the main lodge at Buckhorn Camps! It is the only known maternal little brown bat colony in the state of Maine. (Did I mention the fact that there are very few bugs at Buckhorn Camps? We didn’t spend the week swatting mosquitoes, because the Buckhorn bat colony keeps the bug population in check. That’s my first good thing. And it was a very good thing, indeed.)

This past week, Buckhorn’s bat colony was the site of a scientific study undertaken by Virginia Tech. Until last week, I had never met anybody who would spend two solid days of driving from Virginia to Maine just so that they could see bats. Last Tuesday evening four such scientists shared our dinner table at Buckhorn Camp. And here is my second good thing: I found it incredibly heartwarming to encounter this little cadre of scientists who were passionate about the lowly bat. In my experience, people don’t gravitate toward bats. People tend to be put off by bats’ unnerving echolocation system, which can send a bat soaring straight at you at high velocity before veering off at the last minute. And then there are concerns about rabies. Nobody likes rabies. But last week, I listened to and marveled at the bat scientists as they shared some of the highlights of their research. They were particularly hopeful that their observations would find white nose syndrome in decline. They sure loved their bats. And I loved the fact that they loved their bats.

I learned so much. Did you know, for instance, that male and female bats dwell in separate colonies, except for a short time in the fall, just before hibernation, when the females migrate to invade the males’ bachelor party? After the males and females mate, they separate again, the females storing the males’ sperm until springtime, when they become impregnated. Little brown bats give birth to just one “pup,” as they are called, and they raise their pups in maternal colonies. In other words, the mothers do all the work of raising the young.

As the gloaming approached, the bat scientists set up netting to allow them to safely catch a couple of dozen bats when they came out to feed. Gloved and masked to keep bats and humans from spreading any diseases to each other, the scientists collected fecal samples (if available) to test for Covid (the concern being that humans may be communicating Covid to bats, not the other way around), saliva to test for rabies, and a wing biopsy for genetic testing that will determine whether or not the bats have developed an immunity to white nose syndrome (evolution at work!). Tests completed, the scientists gently released the bats, who resumed their regular programming of decimating the mosquito population.

Based on the scientists’ observations, this maternal colony of little brown bats appears to be healthy. And that is my third good thing. Tests may reveal hidden problems, of course, but the scientists saw no evidence of white nose syndrome in the bats they tested. The bats also appear to be plentiful — an estimated 100 to 150 bats house themselves in the main lodge eaves until it is time to migrate.

You may think it odd that my vacation blog dwells on bats. To be sure, the bats were only one part of a wonderful week. There also were the three hilarious Buckhorn dogs, for instance, who provided regular entertainment. There was the walk to the other end of the island, where Mount Katahdin, in all her majesty, was on glorious display. There was the bald eagle. And the ducks. And the loons. And the full moon reflected on the lake. And the stars so visible in the night sky before moonrise.

It’s just that the bats were something completely unexpected and so very different from our typical vacation activities. And the scientists’ excitement about the work they were doing generated so much joy among the rest of us.

Then there were the bats themselves. Those tiny, mysterious beings. The day after all the tests were taken, I spotted a little bat sleeping in between the two panes in our cabin’s skylight. Maybe she was put off by the previous evening’s activities, so she decided to wait in a quieter location before returning home. Or maybe she went walkabout for some other reason. I don’t know. What I do know is that while she slept, she would occasionally shift to find a better position for herself. And when she moved, her precious, tiny little ears were two pinpricks of sweetness that made my heart melt. Come evening, she was gone — off to hunt mosquitoes, no doubt — and she never returned to our cabin. But I saw her up close. And those ears!

Love,

Sylvia

Mount Katahdin.

Dawn at Buckhorn Camps.