Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost.

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. I finally got the snow that I have been waiting for all winter. It wasn’t the huge storm that they promised me, but we did get a few inches. And it was enough to cancel school for a day here in Fairfax. It got so cold here that they had delayed school openings two days this week too. It was so nice to sleep late! I am told they got a lot of snow north of us. I hope everyone is shoveled out by now and your power is on.

As you all know, it was St. Patrick’s Day yesterday. I hope you all remembered to wear green! If not, I suppose you probably got pinched a lot and will probably wear green next year. I thought it would be nice to research a cute little Irish bat in honor of the holiday. I found an adorable one. It is called the Whiskered bat.

The Whiskered bat is a small, rare European bat that has long sensory whiskers. They have pretty, dark brown fur on their backs and grayish fur on their stomachs. Whiskered bats have black faces and long triangular pointy black ears. They have very small feet for a bat. Whiskered bats look a lot like Ireland’s pipistrelle bats and are related to the Brandt’s bat that is found on mainland Europe.

These furry little creatures live near water and do well near humans. They like to eat small winged insects like moths and beetles. I don’t know about you, but I think we should send them a nice box of Bat Scout S’tinks! I think they might like to eat them!

If you would like to read more about the Whiskered bat, you can read about them here.

And now, I have some news about an animal rescue organization in North Carolina that is asking for help. They aren’t able to work with bats, but they do teach people about how amazing bats are and how important they are. They help a lot of different kinds of animas. They are asking for clean, used mascara brushes. They use the brushes to help remove fly eggs and larva from the fur and feathers of the animals they rescue. If you have any mascara brushes that you were going to throw away, please consider cleaning them and sending them to the Appalachian Wildlife Refuge. You can find information about where to send them here:  http://www.appalachianwild.org/ .

I hope you all have a nice week!