bat rescue

We rescued five bats from our woodstove and its chimney tonight. Two we brought out by hand (in gloves, of course), and three by opening doors and shooing them. I think they were Little Brown Bats (Myotis lucifugus)—using Stokes Beginner's Guide to Bats for identification after the fact. Even after all that time in Carlsbad and with DR in Montana, I'd forgotten what to look for.

Big Brown Bat Eptesicus fuscus	Length: 3.4 -5.4" Wingspan: 13-16" Weight: 0.4 - 0.8 oz No fur on wings, tail, ears, nose, which are dark brown/black
Little Brown Bat Myotis lucifugus	Length: 2.4 - 4.0" Wingspan: 9-11"" Weight: 0.2 - 0.3 oz Long hair on toes, small black ears

What we saw: medium brown fur, slightly ashy. Slighter darker ears, wings. Didn't look closely at their feet. Hairless wing membranes, naturally. They looked more like the little brown bat pictures, what with the proportion of eye size to head, nose not noticeably black.

We took some photos, but they were hopelessly inadequate. Oh well. Luckily, there's google.

Turns out the Montshire Museum did a week of "Montshire Minutes" on bats. And here's s brief natural history summary from Mass Audubon as well.

Two Two-Lined

Two-lined Salamander
(Eurycea bislineata)
Starksboro, July 2007

We were moving some old tarps covering up some aging lumber and our extendable ladder, so we could put the boards and the ladder up on the rafters in the woodshed. This stuff was up on some sawhorses about 3 feet off the ground. Over the last couple of years (have I mentioned we move slowly on our projects?), leaves and moisture had collected along the tops of these things. And certain small critters were attracted to such habitat...

There were two salamanders, but only one got photographed. That ruler is awfully bright, isn't it?

Cooper's Hawks

We saw a whole family of Cooper's Hawks over our house today. I think there were four: 2 adults, 2 young. Very talkative, lots of cheeking sorts of sounds.

Woodshed

Up here in dem boonies, we heats with wood.

Ok, enough of that dialect.

But yes, we heat with wood. We don't have enough land and time to harvest and split our own (although we do a little culling here and there, and will more next year). We buy it. Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at stacking it and covering it with tarps. On the other hand, over the years, the tarps have developed holes. In my wanna-be-irregular thriftiness, I don't replace the tarps perhaps as often as we'd find useful.

Woodshed, about 6' x 14'. Using 4"x4" pressure-treated posts (would recommend cedar, however) and standing seam metal roofing, precast concrete footers, and 1"x4" pine for rafters and roof slats

So this year, we (by which I mostly mean my husband and brother-in-law) built a woodshed. This is a little taller than we'd intended (thanks to my brother-in-law's powers of persuasion). It is in fact (despite the picture) plumb, but as I'm often not, neither is the image... It'll hold about 5 cords, which is about what we burn in a winter, give or take.

It will have some pallets for flooring, presently, and eventually (this year?) we'll add slatted sides for better weather protection.