Bats?

[Peteo]

Walking home from the pub yesterday and a bat flew into my face!
Just wondering if this is common as i thought they traveled with sound and all the way home was wondering how i would not of been recognized? It was only around 11pm too

Funny experience though!

 

[mountainm]

Perhaps you have a stealth face - you know - lots of angles and flat planes to confuse their echo location?

 

[Peteo]

Perhaps you have a stealth face - you know - lots of angles and flat planes to confuse their echo location?

Hoping so! Asked my Brother in law when i got home and now he think's i have Rabies although no bit or bite mark and the 11.30 pm shower just in case..

 

[Androo]

I would guess that the bat was mid-feed, and as it's echo location is in over-ride when it zeros in on it's prey (to almost total blindness to everything but it's prey)
Then there are other factors like all this wireless technology (internet, mobile phones, GPS etc), power surges in the electrical grid, and magnetic field disturbances...among other things.
Were you on your phone? Was it a built up area? Any emergency radio masts or electrical pylons nearby?

Or maybe it too was on the way home from the pub ;O)

Source: My Uncle is one of the UK's leading experts on Bats

 

[British Red]

Hoping so! Asked my Brother in law when i got home and now he think's i have Rabies although no bit or bite mark and the 11.30 pm shower just in case..

There is no rabies in UK bats - nothing to worry about

 

[mountainm]

There is no rabies in UK bats - nothing to worry about

.... Red's right - you see apparently the Syphilis they carry prevents them from catching it...

 

[Peteo]

I would guess that the bat was mid-feed, and as it's echo location is in over-ride when it zeros in on it's prey (to almost total blindness to everything but it's prey)
Then there are other factors like all this wireless technology (internet, mobile phones, GPS etc), power surges in the electrical grid, and magnetic field disturbances...among other things.
Were you on your phone? Was it a built up area? Any emergency radio masts or electrical pylons nearby?

Or maybe it too was on the way home from the pub ;O)

Source: My Uncle is one of the UK's leading experts on Bats

I was not on the phone and didn't have it on me. I was just about to walk under a bridge and felt it hit the side of my head and seen it fly off!

And i know about Rabies in the UK, its the Brother in law worrying about that, i just needed a shower as apparently smelt like a brewery!

 

[cave_dweller]

There is no rabies in UK bats - nothing to worry about

Apparently a very few Daubenton's bats have been found in the UK with live EBLV ('rabies like virus'), but the risk is still pretty tiny. I was once told by a doctor that if you wake up to find a bat in the room, or find a child with a bat in the room, that it would be wise to assume you have been bitten and seek treatment. I don't know how paranoid that is though!

 

[santaman2000]

I know rabies is tightly controled over there but I have to wonder if it's truly possible to totally eliminate it. There are sea ports all round the country and I've NEVER known a port where the rats didn't travel freely up and down mooring lines dispite all precautions and efforts to prevent it.

That aside, back to why the bat was flying blind as it were? Do you have any species of fruit bat? If so it's possible it had gotten into some fermented fruit and was indeed inebriated as Androo joked.

 

[myotis]

I am aware of a few people who have reported bats flying into them, while they have been surveying for them. Usually where there are distinctive linear features that the bats seem to be following, e.g along a canal towpath.

I have almost been hit by a greater horseshoe bat, and I could feel what I assume was its wing brush my head.


On a more important matter, a person died in Scotland in 2002 from a bat bite

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2509375.stm

None the less the risks are tiny.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&Page&HPAwebAutoListName/Page/1215157152257


Graham

 

[santaman2000]

A good reason to seek the series of shots IMMEDIATELY upon being bitten. As the article says, they're no known cure and survival rates are all but non-existant after the disease begins to develop. It is easily headed off if the series when started before onset though. Almost universally successful.

 

[myotis]

A good reason to seek the series of shots IMMEDIATELY upon being bitten.

Indeed, I should have made that point in my post.

Thanks,

Graham

 

[Harvestman]

Regarding the collision, bats make mistakes too. I had one collide with a window, which was scary as I was looking out of it at the time, and a black shape hurtling out of the darkness and thudding to a halt a few inches from my face didn't half get my attention!

 

[The Ratcatcher]

About 10 years ago I went bat watching with my wife, and in the first half hour, she had been hit twice, both times on the head. Nothing was coming anywhere near me, though. Then a thought occured to me, and I loaned her my baseball cap, after which the bats kept clear of both of us.

I have long hair, but it's usually tried back, but she had a large frizzy Afro, and I guess that it acted like the "panscrub" materail they use under the skin of some stealth aircraft to absorb radar, and absorbed the bats echolocation cheeps. If we go bat watching now, she wears a hat, even though she changed her hairstyle a long time ago.

Alan

 

[oldtimer]

We heard weird noises in the night recently and realised something was in the bedroom with us. Whenever we put the light on the noises stopped and we could see nothing at first. Then we saw what we first took to be a bird, but being quick on the uptake, realised it was a bat when it hung upside down from a rafter. Poor thing was flying in squares trying to find the door, then resting. It was clearly trying to avoid me as I tried to shoo it out. Eventually I had the idea of catching it in a small kiddies fishing net, which I just happened to have in my every-night-carry, and got it out of the window unharmed. By now it was dawn and it took off like a bat out of hell. I don't know who was more relieved, my wife who had her head under the bedclothes the whole time, me or the bat.

 

[ged]

We used to have around 50 bats living at our place in France. A few Mediterranean horseshoe and lots of pipestrelle. We'd developed techniques to keep them out of the kitchen, and I was happy for them to stay, but earlier this year SWMBO decided that they had to go now that most of the building work is finished. Basically that meant closing all the windows one night while the bats were out hunting. Most of them got the hint, but there were a few die-hards who didn't want to budge and took any and every opportunity to get back in. She found that whistling seemed to be the best way to get them to leave. If you'd heard her sing, you'd probably understand the bats' point of view about her whistling.

Now, if we leave any of the windows open for more than about ten minutes there'll be five or six bats hanging from the rafters and we have to make sure they've all left again before closing up.

http://www.jubileegroup.co.uk/JOS/misc/u7319408.jpg

Even when there have been dozens flying around me in what looks like complete chaos, I've never had one bump into me.

There is rabies in Europe, but it's never given me the slightest concern that I might be infected by a bat. They mostly stay away from humans for their own safety.

 

[santaman2000]

...There is rabies in Europe, but it's never given me the slightest concern that I might be infected by a bat. They mostly stay away from humans for their own safety.

The same could be said of most wild animals. The problem is that rabies also affects their judgement and alters their natural behavioral patterns making them more aggressive (or defensive) That's why it should always be suspected whenever any mammal is acting oddly compared to it's normal behavior.