Category Baturday News

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’m sure you have all seen the picture of the adorable Australian Fruit Bat named Jackie Sparrow who is in care at the Australian Bat Clinic. She is being sponsored by the actor Johnny Depp, who plays the character Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Fruit bats are adorable and I think a lot of people like them. They’re much bigger than our insect eating bats and are really cute. Even when they’re babies, they are big enough to wrap in blankets like burritos and have their pictures taken for all to see. I think it’s great that they have so many fans, but I think we need to do something about the image problem our little insect eating bats have. So, I have a BRILLIANT idea! I know it’s brilliant because all of my ideas are. I think we need to get an actor to sponsor one of our bats. Personally, I think Freda needs a sponsor because she will never be released and she’s young and different and cute. But, Save Lucy has a lot of lovely bats to choose from. I think the logical choice in actors is Ben Affleck. He is the actor who plays Batman in the movie Batman v Superman. He has already appeared in an Organization for Bat Conservation video. Clearly, he likes bats! Maybe he just hasn’t heard of us yet. Now, for the important part of my plan…someone out there needs to tell Mr. Affleck all about […]

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 know you have seen all the shark stories in the news lately. Sharks are biting people at the beaches. Personally, I have decided to stay away from the beach this summer. The bats have other plans. They are a little upset because of all the attention sharks are getting. I think they are jealous. Last night, I heard all of them talking about going to the ocean. They want to swim around and look scary so everyone will pay more attention to them. Poor little things. Have you seen them? Even when they show their teeth, they don’t look too scary. I heard one of them coming up with a plan to solve that little problem. She is planning to get tangled up in a lifeguard’s hair! I think that should get them in the news. I did my best to talk them out of it, but if you’re going to the beach, don’t forget to look up. And lifeguards beware! Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Of course, we could solve the problem easily if more people would just pay attention to our little furry friends. Maybe say “hi” to them if you see them flying around. Maybe the Discovery Channel could have “BAT WEEK” instead of “Shark Week”…just a thought. Instead of a shark fin being part of the “A”, a lovely bat wing could be included. In other news, I saw some more bats flying outside my house! I was out yesterday evening and they […]

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 am sooooo happy that school is out! I can sleep late now. YES!!!!!!!! I know that I am not the only one happy that school is out for the summer. One special little bat shared one of his diary entries with us. It’s been a while, but I do believe you all know Brownie.  Well, here it is.  Brownie’s Diary                                                              6/19/15 Dear Diary, Hi! I am so happy this night! My bat school is finally out! I also heard that the human school got out today too. That is exciting. It’s finally summer vacation. And my mom said I could celebrate with my friends for the rest of the night! We are going to go to the lake first. And then we are going to swim. I love swimming! After that we are going to have some snacks. Maybe we’ll eat some moths! Then we are going to watch a lot of movies and go to bed. It will be fun. Oh, my friends are here; I have to go. – Brownie I hope everyone has a great summer! Don’t forget to get outside and look for bats. We finally saw one for the first time since we moved to our new house. I was really missing the bats, so I’m very, very happy that we saw one flying around. There were a lot of yummy bugs flying around, so I think my new friend had a nice feast!

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade 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 tried to find some interesting news about bats for this week’s blog, but was very unsuccessful. Google completely let me down!!! Apparently, my search of “bats in the news” gives more baseball results than cute bat animal results. Very, very disappointing! So, I’ll just say something little about a couple of different things…nothing new really. First, there is an awesome group called Lights Out Baltimore. They are a group of birdwatchers who try to make Baltimore safe for migratory birds by turning out some of the city lights during peak migration seasons [and by walking the streets at dawn and collecting the bats and birds that hit the city windows–ed.]. This is awesome for the birds, but it’s also awesome for bats. So, thank you Lights Out Baltimore! Now, if only we could get more cities to do the same thing. Any adults out there want to start a Lights Out Fairfax? I would also like to make sure everyone has seen the cute bat pup pictures that Save Lucy has been posting on its Facebook page. Earlier this week, there was a very cute video of a little bat baby snuggling in a new dog toy shaped like a slipper. I think everyone needs to see this video at least once, so check it out on Save Lucy’s YouTube channel (click the YouTube icon above to see all the great videos). And here’s a NEW baby video for you… There was also a very cute picture of […]

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade 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 everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day! Happy unofficial start of summer!!!  The nice thing about the start of summer for us humans is that school is almost out and the pools are finally open. The nice thing for bats is that all their cute little babies will be born soon! A few have already been born. A few weeks ago one of Save Lucy’s rehab bats had twins! They are doing well and are adorable! I love seeing pictures of them!  They are very cute and fluffy. Soon lots and lots of little pups will be showing up at Save Lucy and everyone is going to be very busy. It always makes me sad to know that the babies couldn’t stay with their moms because something terrible happened, but I do like seeing all the little babies. So, while we wait for more little pups, here is a cute picture of some pups that are already here. I hope you like it.

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade 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 have great news! I am a movie star!!!!!! Wellllllllll……. a PSA star, but I have to start somewhere! I was lucky enough to get casted for a public service announcement to help Save Lucy! It was a lot of fun and it will air on cable TV!!! The very nice people at The Good Food Factory show are going to help raise awareness of how awesome bats are by showing the PSA. Right now, the show only airs in California, but a little bat told me that it will air somewhere in Virginia sometime soon. So, keep your eye out. I think it would be a fun show to watch. If you don’t get the channel, you can watch some of their shows online. Here is a link to their website. http://www.thegoodfoodfactory.com/ And now, here is the PSA. I hope you all like it. I’m sure it will win some sort of award. I smell an Emmy.  Ha ha. I’d like to thank my family for always being there for me. I’d like to thank my co-star, Colvin. I couldn’t have done it without him. I’d especially like to thank the people at The Good Food Factory and The Save Lucy Campaign. Without you none of this would have been possible. And last, but not least, I’d like to thank the little bats of Save Lucy. You really were the stars of the show! And now, if there are any movie producers or directors out there who need […]

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade 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 this wild colony  Hi everyone! Happy Endangered Species Day! (A day late. Endangered Species Day was yesterday.) I thought that because it was Endangered Species Day, we should learn about an adorable endangered bat – the Virginia big-eared bat. I think you all will agree that it is absolutely adorable with its huge ears. The Virginia big-eared bat is about 3.4 – 4 inches long. Its ears are over 1 inch long! These bats live in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. They like to live in caves. They don’t migrate, so they live in caves all year. That worries me because the fungus that causes WNS likes to live in caves too. I thought that the main reason Virginia big-eared bats were endangered was because of WNS, but it turns out that they think the main reason is human disturbance of their habitat. When humans disturb the colonies during hibernation, the bats lose their stored fat reserves. This can cause them to die before spring. So, on behalf of all Virginia big-eared bats, I would like to ask for people to not disturb them while they are trying to hibernate. Another interesting fact about Virginia big-eared bats is that more of them live in West Virginia than in any other state. I think this is funny because they are called Virginia big-eared bats, not West Virginia big-eared bats. Maybe West Virginia could give us some of our bats back. Or maybe some of the bats could vacation in Virginia and decide that it’s […]

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade 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 this wild colony  Hi everyone! As you all know, I LOVE bats! I also LOVE dinosaurs! I found a very special dinosaur. The only reason I’m writing about it here is because it walked on two legs and had wings just like a bat! Isn’t that cool?! It is called Yi qi. Up until now, they thought that the only dinosaurs that had wings couldn’t fly and their wings were covered in feathers. Yi qi’s wings were not covered in feathers, but were structured very much like a bat’s. And – here’s the really interesting part – because of its cool bat wings, Yi qi could actually take to the sky, but it glided more than it flew. Some of the pictures of Yi qi might look scary because the pictures make it look big, but that’s the same thing that happened to the sweet little vampire bat. All the Dracula movies made vampire bats look big and scary, but really they’re just sweet little guys. Yi qi only weighed half a pound and was the size of a chicken. So, it’s not very scary at all. In fact, it might have been almost as cute as a cuddly little vampire bat. (Just remember not to cuddle bats, even if you want to. It’s not a good idea.)