We recently moved to a new city, and consequently, a new home. Our new home included some wonderful wildlife. Of course we have the usual birds, squirrels and hummers, and our large oak tree is also home to a wonderful owl and a nice sized group of bats. We were blessed this evening to see the bats in action, swooping and swirling as they chased mosquitoes (love those bats!!). It was so interesting to see them as they used their echo-location to locate their prey. During most of their hunt, we watch 6 bats . Several times, as many as 3 bats went after the same mosquito, nearly colliding, but missing every time. The kids, dh and I were mesmerized. Several times, we were fortunate enough to have the bats fly low enough to hear their wings as they whooshed by. Amazing! The kids want to see the bats up close, so if you know how to gently capture a bat (to be released within a few minutes, of course), please reply with your tips.
So, now that the kids are excited about bats, of course we are going to study them. Tonight, after we came in, we read about them in our Usborne Children's Encyclopedia. We are going to read more about them in the morning in our Pocket Nature book and will check the library for some fiction books that contain bats (we're going to try to avoid Halloween books to avoid the stereotypical bat characters). Should be fun! We'll post pics of our art/ crafts and list the books we read.
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