On bluebirds, bats, and short-short stories

A charmed day. Fickle March was running hot. A record 85 degrees today in these parts. Good things happening:

1. Sapphire Wink. Another pair of eastern bluebirds have apparently taken up residence in the second birdhouse, this one in our front yard. Unusual, since bluebirds are pretty shy about coming to feeders, and prefer meadows. The two of them sat on the power line, swooping down to gulp insects. Beautiful plumage. A sapphire wink, every time the male fluttered by.

2. On winning garden gloves and other cool stuff. I am honored that two of my short-short stories--the ones in the previous entry, in fact-- were chosen among the winners of Gardenrant's first short-short fiction contest. Check out all 100-plus entries.

3. Batty Love. Okay, and on this balmy night, sitting on the front porch under the moon with a glass of wine, I watched two bats zig and zag in that loopy, erratic, confident way. So happy they're back out this spring...hope they've checked in our bat house out back.

4. First Drafts. And now for something completely different. Well, tangential. Sort of. Speaking of rousing from hibernation...Spring is so full of awakening, potential and birth and energy and blinking in the sun, it seems to me a perfect time for first drafts. To quote John Dufresne (again), "In the first draft, rely on spontaneity, rely on inspiration, follow your tangents, pursue your blunders...all first drafts are experimental, chaotic, messy, and all take time, energy, patience, persistence, and devotion...The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written."

I'm Batty

I guess my love for the only flying mammal started by reading Stellaluna by Janell Cannon to my daughter years ago. We even had the little stuffed animal Stellaluna that you could velcro around the bedpost. It's hard not to love this critter:

Lately, bats are having a hard time...they are endangered, and, according to this NY Times article, perishing from a mysterious cause biologists haven't identified. (You know, like the honey bees.)

Bat houses help. I put mine up a couple of months ago, and I'm waiting for the migrating bats to move in.

The National Organization for Bat Conservation has lots of info...like, did you know a bat house is either a "nursery" with females and young, or a "bachelor" house with males ( that would be a frat bat house?)

Also, according to the site: "Bats are not blind, and are very clean animals. They do not get caught in peoples’ hair or chew through the attic of your house. Bats will not interfere with feeding backyard birds, and they will not be disrupted by pets or children."

What Bats will do is pollinate (they are night pollinators) and eat a S*!@ load of mosquitoes. After all, bats are the primary predators of night-flying insects.

Okay, so I'll get off my bat box in a minutue, but first, even if you don't find these much maligned critters particulary appealing, know that bats play a vital role in maintaining the balance of nature:
"As consumers of vast numbers of pests, they rank among humanity’s most valuable allies. A single little brown bat can catch hundreds of mosquito-sized insects an hour, and a typical colony of big brown bats can protect local farmers from the costly attacks of 18 million root-worms each summer." So maybe my backyard neighbors are freaked out, but my bathouse is mounted on a 16-foot pole...here...away from trees (Bats don't like the houses on trees) and is facing southeast to take advantage of the morning sun.

I'm hoping I'll look up one day and see them snug like this: