Trail Time – Possible Good News for Bats
It’s been sunny and warm on the Gunflint Trail this September. Though the leaves of the birch trees and aspen are turning yellow and fluttering down in the breeze; though the mountain ash trees are full of bright red berries, and there are hardly any mosquitoes around, it’s not fall yet. In my mind I’m ready to say good bye to another summer but this summer just won’t quit. And I’m always up for more summer shenanigans.
The best part of summer is the stuff we did when we were kids and the young person who is still alive inside me still ends each summer wishing for:
More canoeing
More swimming
More camping
More fishing
More campfires
This has been perfect weather for abandoning the haven of our screen porch and sitting outside in the evenings, and we’ve been delighted to see bats doing their gymnastic moves, flying in the twilit sky. We’ve haven’t seen many bats in a long time and frankly, I’ve been worried about them.
I’ve had a few close encounters with bats, the most memorable one being when Lars and I moved some timbers from Hovland to the Gunflint Trail in order to start building our cabin. The large pine timbers had been cribbed up to let air circulate freely around them so they would stay dry and season well without rotting until Lars could make the tenons and mortises in them. As we lifted each (very heavy) timber, I noticed wet leaves falling off and landing on the ground. Then one of the leaves grew feet and started crawling away. It was a bat that I had mistaken for a leaf. It was so creepy and cool! The cribbed up timbers had made a perfect shelter for them until we disturbed them. They crawled away and then flew off. This was daytime so we’d been disturbing their sleep.
Bats are nocturnal and catch insects like moths, beetles and mosquitoes while in flight. I had always imagined them catching their food in their mouths, but no — I recently learned that they catch insects in their cupped tail membranes as they fly around, then they transfer the insects to their mouths while they’re flying. It’s just such a wild idea but wilder still is their use of sonar to locate the insects.
It seems we used to see a lot more bats than we do now, and there might be a reason for that. A disease called White-nose Syndrome has killed a lot of bats in North America in the last decade. In Minnesota, the Small Brown Bat population has been most affected, with up to 90% losses in winter hibernation caves, called hibernacula. Another species, the Big Brown Bat, is the most common species in the state and is reported as being stable. The Northern Long-Eared Bat was listed as endangered in 2022. Minnesota’s bats are very small — the smallest one weighs as much as a nickel (the Tri-colored Bat) and the largest weighs slightly over one ounce.
Less bats can mean more pests damaging trees and crops and more biting of the humans, so it was with great pleasure that I read this week that there has been a possible breakthrough in the treatment of White-nose Syndrome. I’ve included a link to the story.. You can find it on WTIP’s web site, at the end of Trail Time. In these days of habitat destruction, global warming and species loss, I promise to pass along any good news story I find.
Good news gives me hope, just like walking in the woods or paddling on a lake lifts my spirits. As I age, I walk slower and I can’t swim for hours like I once did, but I have the same joy of being in the natural world as I did when I was young. It’s the realest thing around. It’s not virtual. It doesn’t take place on a small screen in my hands. My whole being is surrounded and buoyed up by nature. Every sense is alive and filled with the experience. It feels like I have a place there, filling a human-shaped hole in the forest. Or maybe the woods fill a forest-shaped hole in me.
— Marcia Roepke
To read about new research in fighting White-nose Syndrome in bats:
To learn about Bat week (October 24-31):
