Martha 6th bat rescue

Martha August 31, 2010

        This is the 6^th bat that I have rescued. The way this one starts is the night before the rescue. I was at music practice and got asked to go make some copies of a song. Then our Pastor called me into his office because he heard that I like bats and that I don’t like them being killed. After talking with him for a while I gave him one of my cards so he could call me if he sees his flying friend again.
That night which was on August 23 we got a phone call asking to come rescue a bat. It was our pastor. We told him to watch the bat so we would know where he is at. When we got there our pastor was waiting for us outside. As soon as he saw that bat he ran out of his house and called us from the church. That didn’t help us any because when we went inside we looked in many places. All over the house, but we couldn’t find him. Now what didn’t help any is that he is moving into the house so he has a lot of boxes lying around where a small bat could hide very easily.
Before we left we told our Pastor a few small bat information to calm him down. That way next time he might stay in the house when he sees the bat again. Then we went home and waited for another bat rescue phone call.
The next day August 24 we got another bat rescue call. It was our pastor. When we got to the house he was inside waiting for us to come. Just over night our Pastor went from scared to actually being able to stay in the same room as the bat. We were proud of him, but we didn’t say anything. When we got inside our pastor said the bat was in the window, and he checked. Then when we couldn’t find the bat, our pastor looked down behind the washing machine. He said, “oh there he is.” The bat was on the washing machine cord trying to crawl up it. Mom could tell the bat was scared so she grabbed him instead of me. After we put him in the cage our pastor was really ok and would look at him.
We left the house and went over to my church and showed Janis the bat. While we were there figured out a name for the bat. We named her Martha because she was on the washing machine cord for Martha Washington. After showing Martha to Janis and Al we brought her home.
Martha started biting on the cage, so mom gently blew at her face so she would stop. She didn’t like that at all. By the time we went to release her almost everyone in the house blew at her to stop biting the cage. A little bit before we released her I went and looked at her in the cage, she was crawling around and when she got to the side of the cage where I was she stopped. It would have been a cute picture because we were nose to nose. Well kind of, there was a cage in between us but it still would have been a cute picture to put on face book.
After we ate dinner Mom, Angela, Faith, 2 foster boys, and I went to Fort McCoy to release Martha. On the way there I had mom’s camera and took a video of Martha trying to get out. A few minutes later we were at Fort McCoy. Mom, Angela, and I got out of the van, I had Martha. While Angela and Mom were videoing I was unzipping the cage. Then we waited about 5 minutes while Martha was crawling around in the cage. While we waited, we had a ton of misquotes trying to eat us. We also saw a lot of bats flying around. The 2 boys and Faith were counting all the bats that came out of the bat houses. When Martha finally flew away we got in the van and watched her fly around for a bit, and then we left. All of us enjoyed watching Martha enjoy her new home.