Leslie Sturges

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student 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. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I am very happy because I am going to be going camping this weekend! I am very excited because I will be in the woods and I might get to see some bats. It’s going to be cold, though, which makes me sad because the bats might not want to come out for very long. I wouldn’t want to be cold if I were them either, which is why I’m packing fleece, fleece and more fleece. Even if I don’t get to see any bats, I’ll at least be able to talk to my fellow campers about them. Most of the people I’m camping with don’t feel too comfortable around bats, so I’ll just have to alleviate some fears. I really do hope I see some. It would make the freezing cold a little more bearable. I wanted to know what kind of bats live where I am going, so I did some research. One of the bats that live there (around Harrisonburg, VA) is the Eastern Small-footed bat. It doesn’t live where I live, so it will be a brand new bat for me, if I see one. I think I might have written about them before. I love the name “small-footed bat!” I think it makes them sound adorable. The Eastern Small-footed bat is the smallest bat in the eastern US. It is only 2 7/8 – 3 ¼ inches long. It has chestnut brown fur with some black […]

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student 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. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! All the little bats are excited because it’s almost Bat Week. Bat Week is an international celebration of all things bats and will be from October 25-31. Save Lucy is one of the organizations involved, so you know all our furry little friends are very happy. One of the ways that Bat Week will be celebrated this year is by making bat houses. More bat houses means more places for bats to live. More places for bats to live means more adorable pups trying (and sometimes failing, gracefully of course) to fly. People from all over North America are going to be making bat houses on October 31. They are trying to make a world record for the most bat houses made in a day. The goal is to make 5,000 new houses, so if you are available on October 31, please sign up for an event near you. For more information, you can go here. http://batweek.org/ If you can’t make a bat house, there are many other things that people can do to help bats. You can turn off lights at night (please see one of my first blogs for more information about why that’s important). You can also keep your cats inside. You can speak up for bats and tell your friends how cool they are. I’m sure everyone has heard of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” It’s important to all animals including bats and humans and it’s an easy way […]

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student 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. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. It’s been a very rainy one here, and it looks like we’re going to get lots more rain. If this doesn’t stop, I’m going to have to build an ark for all my batty friends. I promised last week that I would write about an Argentinian bat and I think I found a very cute one. Of course, all of them were cute, but since Halloween is coming up I thought it would be nice to write about the white-winged vampire bat. It is soooooo cute! The white-winged vampire bat is tiny. It’s only about 3.3 inches long and doesn’t have an external tail. The adults weigh about 30-45 grams. The fur is a shiny claylike color, light brown, or a dark cinnamon brown. The edges of the wings are obviously white. The wing membrane between its 2nd and 3rd fingers is white too. They have a cute little thumb that has a pad under it. One thing I thought was interesting is that the white-winged vampire bat is the only bat known to have 22 permanent teeth. The other two vampire bats only have 20 teeth. Everyone knows that vampire bats feed on blood, but they don’t often feed on human blood, so there is no need to be scared of them. White-winged vampire bats drink blood from the feet of birds. You can read more about this cute little bat here. So, this Halloween (only 28 days away!) when […]

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student 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. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! Since the Pope is visiting and his name is Pope Francis after St. Francis, who loved animals, I thought he’d just love it if this blog would be about an Italian bat. They have a lot of different bats in Italy, but I found the cutest one out there! It is called the European free-tailed bat. Since it’s a free-tailed bat, Freda likes it too. She thinks it’s one of her long lost European cousins. The European free-tailed bat is really strong, with fur on its upper body. The fur is soft and plush-like, it’s long on its neck. The hair is also goes onto its wings and the base of the flight membrane.  The ears are very complex. They are large and rounded. The inner sides of the ears are pointing downwards and are very close to each other but don’t touch. I love its ears. Its wings are long and narrow, and can be grayish-brown or black. The face is long and its muzzle is wrinkled. The top lip has short hairs. I think it looks like he has a little mustache and beard. His feet are strong and his long tail goes beyond the flight membrane. You can read about it here. I think it might be my new favorite bat! I love its little nose. It’s so cute!!!!!! Since the pope is originally from Argentina, next week…an Argentinian bat. I hope the pope enjoys his trip and that you all have a nice week!

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student 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. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a nice week. It’s been a long one for me. Five whole days of school can be exhausting after a couple of months off! Who is ready for the next vacation??? I was trying to find something interesting to write about this week and found a post on the Save Lucy Facebook page. I’m sure some of you have already seen it, but just in case, I thought it would be nice to mention it here… As you know, the rehabilitators at Save Lucy work very hard to help the bats recuperate from whatever illness or injury brought them here. After they have recuperated, it’s time for the bats to fly wild and free. Sometimes the bats have another idea. [The above video is of one of the ‘shed bats’ taking off for the night.–Ed.] Save Lucy released almost 30 bats a few weeks ago. Once they are released, most bats fly away happily and go on with their little batty lives. Occasionally, some of them don’t want to leave. That is exactly what happened with 2 of the bats that were recently released. These 2 bats leave every night, but every morning, they are back in the shed at Save Lucy. The rehabilitators aren’t sure exactly why the bats keep coming back. Sadly, the little bats don’t speak English, so they can’t tell their human friends what they’re thinking. They might be waiting for a friend who still hasn’t been released. They might […]

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student 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. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a nice week. Since Friday was September 11th, I thought it would be nice to write about a bat that lives in New York. A lot of the bats they have there are the same kinds of bats we have here in Fairfax, VA. A couple of them are different. One of them is the Small-footed bat. I don’t think any of them live around here. It’s really cute! It’s New York’s smallest bat and weighs less than a nickel. The Small-footed bat has a very black face mask, just like a raccoon. It also has black wings. It has long, glossy fur and tiny little feet. During the summer, it roosts and raises its young in rocks, cliff faces and road cuts. It also likes to roost in concrete bridges. During the winter, it roosts in caves. I found this website that lists a few more NY bats in addition to the Small-footed bat. Check it out here. In other news, Bat Fest Annandale is this weekend and it’s sold out! It’s going to be a great time. Don’t worry if you aren’t able to make it. There will be more! I hope you all have a good week!

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student 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. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a nice week. I read an interesting article today. I am sure some of you saw it because Save Lucy posted it on its Facebook page. We also discussed the topic at bat fest Arlington. The article is about wind turbines and bats and I have some great news! The wind turbine industry is going to turn off the turbines when there is low wind when the bats are migrating! Isn’t that awesome?! By turning the turbines off when there is low wind, tens of thousands of bats could be saved! When bats fly too close to the spinning turbine blades, they are killed. This is particularly bad to the migratory bats. They fly great distances during the spring and fall and are the bats most often found dead around the turbines. People have been trying to solve the problem for over a decade, but it’s an expensive problem to fix. It became a more important problem when the Northern long-eared bat was listed as “threatened” by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Even though the Northern long-eared bat isn’t migratory, they have been found dead around the turbines. Something had to be done! The industry has agreed to new guidelines that will have the turbines turned off during the fall migration period from mid-July through mid-October when there is low wind. Most of the bat deaths occur during that period of time. If you would like to read the article, you can read […]

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student 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. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a fun week! As I told everyone last week, Bat Fest Arlington was on Saturday (aka Baturday). It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed meeting some of you. Three of Save Lucy’s bats were there. It was nice to see Mooch again. He performed quite nicely for the crowd and squeaked a lot, which made everyone very happy. Little Freda wasn’t quite as happy to see her admirers. She did not want to eat or drink, but she did show off her lovely tail for her audience. There was also a really pretty red bat named Poppy. In addition to Save Lucy’s live bat talk, there was a Bat Art Gallery on display. I really enjoyed seeing all the pretty artwork. My favorite was the little felt Tinybat and Tinybat’s picture. I still miss him, so it’s always nice to see it. There were a lot of really pretty paintings of bats and some pottery bat bowls. There were a lot of batty activities outside and a batwalk, too. I hope to see some more of you at Bat Fest in Annandale next month. It’s on Saturday, September 12! You can register here I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to stay away from wild animals, even if they are adorable and cute and fluffy. I saw a family of fox kits last night (I know…they weren’t bats, but they were still cute). They were crossing the street […]

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a middle school student 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. Her family cheerfully hosted the wild colony for years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a nice week and are enjoying the last few weeks of summer vacation. I know you all are going to think it’s too soon to start thinking about Halloween, but if you want to be crafty, you have to start thinking about it now. Halloween is only a couple months away and that means it’s time to start making bat decorations. Personally, I was thinking of decorating the entire house in a lovely bat theme. What I’d really like is a wreath on the door with a bunch of bats hanging in it. I’ve seen a lot of ghosty and pumpkiny wreaths, but no bats ones! So, it’s time to start making some bats. Then, I’ll have to put together a wreath. This is what I’ve found so far… I found this really cute crochet pattern online. It’s a free pattern and I think the bat is adorable. There are pictures of it in different colors to help you come up with ideas. I think it would be perfect hanging on a wreath on my front door. And maybe a few of them should be in my window. And maybe a few more around the house. The only problem is that I don’t know how to crochet. It’s quite a dilemma I’ve found myself in. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to successfully become an expert crocheter in time to make these. Maybe I should try something a little less ambitious, but I’d […]