Well Nick and I have just returned from a two week trip to Virginia. I am still sorting out the photos but hope to post a few on the blog with some thoughts within the next few days.
On our return I received a very nice card from Margaret Shannon telling me that the total raised for Great Waldingfield Church by her heroic sleep-in with bats was £626.50p. (see previous post 'Sleeping with bats'.)
Margaret's exploits came to mind during my holiday since I spent some of the time reading a 'good bad book' called The Historian, which is an up to date version of the Dracula Story. Dracula of course spent much of his time disguised as a bat which has given the species something of a bad name.
They don't deserve this bad reputation! They rarely if ever fly into your hair apparently. I have only had one really close encounter with a bat. A chap on a course that I went on some years ago worked as some sort of conservation officer in the real world and had a tiny injured pipistrelle bat that he was caring for in his room!
It was very sweet, with tiny hands and whiskers. About 4 centimeters long, pipistrelles according to the BBC website, don't drink the blood of the unwary, but they can eat up to 3000 insects in a night!
